Static
by Eldr-Fire
Summary: Sakura finds some old tapes in Kurenai's closet with Kakashi's name on them. When she begins to watch them, the psychological changes she undergoes could be permanently damaging to her relationship with him. KakaSaku, KG spoilers.
1. Prologue

Name: Static _(subject to change)_

Rating: M _for language, mature themes, and sexual content  
_

Pairing: KakaSaku, _implied InoShika, AsuKure, and GenShizu_

Author's Note: _For the first time ever, I have planned out an entire story on notebook paper, scene by scene. Whether or not all of it was necessary or whether or not it will all be effective, I actually know EXACTLY where this story is going. Now, knowing that the story is rated M and that it's about movies that Sakura finds, one may be led to a certain conclusion… but that's false. They're not sex tapes. I'm not sure what sort of update schedule I'll be going with. The actual chapters will be longer than this.  
_

Prologue

A great cloud of dust flew up as Sakura ruthlessly brandished her feather duster. She had been waging war on Kurenai's living room for half an hour now and was one dusty table away from being finished. The surface itself was no problem for a woman of Sakura's caliber, but the tight space between the table and the wall was testing her patience. With several wild twists and a final flourish, Sakura stepped back from her work. A grin spread across her face as she wiped the sweat from her brow; the living room was spotless. Pleased with her success, she congratulated the feather duster for its contribution and hung in on its hook in the kitchen.

After washing her hands and face, she cautiously approached Kurenai. The dark-haired woman was scrubbing at her dirty dishes with an unheard of ferocity; she had made a lot of progress in the past forty minutes, but there was still a teetering pile of plates and bowls waiting in the sink. She was issuing expletives under her breath as she worked; she had returned home from a month-long mission to find that her son had managed to make a complete mess of the apartment while she was gone. As most of her friends were out of town, she had recruited Sakura to help with the "cleaning", although that term seriously understated the gravity of their task.

"Hey," Sakura said, leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. "I finished the living room."

"Great," Kurenai said distractedly. Soapsuds were flying wildly from where she stood bent over the sink, landing softly in her ebony hair. "I've still got a lot to do here…" She sighed. "Do you mind doing my closet?"

"Closet?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah," Kurenai said, "the one in my bedroom."

Sakura raised her eyebrows. "He ransacked your bedroom closet?" Kurenai's frustrated sigh was answer enough for Sakura, who pushed herself off the doorframe and headed towards Kurenai's room. The apartment was rather large; Asuma had been the Third's son, so Kurenai had received a rather large sum of money in compensation for his death. Raising a child alone was expensive, but Kurenai had managed to save some of that money for a nice apartment. Sakura was quite fond of the place, although at times the toys littered on the floor made it hard to walk around.

Kurenai's bedroom was simple and neat; she had cleaned her own room first. The bedspread was a pale pink and a photograph of her and Asuma sat on the nightstand beside it. The most notable feature of the room was the shelf of movies against the wall. Kurenai's life was usually dominated by either her son or her job; films were about her only indulgence. Sakura often borrowed movies from Kurenai, whose collection had grown to be quite extensive.

Tearing her eyes away from the array of films, Sakura instead turned her attention to the closet. The door stood ajar, inviting Sakura to dull forty-five minutes of organization. Flipping the switch on, she began to sift through the scattered papers and boxes.

(…)

There seemed to be no end to Kurenai's closet; Sakura was half-convinced she had been caught in some strange warp of space. Clothing had been tossed into piles and documents had been lodged into every nook and cranny, but that wasn't the worst of it. Sakura was sure that if she had to sort through one more godforsaken box she was going to chuck it through the roof. She had never pinned Kurenai as a packrat, although she had some understanding for Kurenai's desire to keep anything of Asuma's. Judging by all of the stuff he had jammed into boxes, the man had never thrown anything away. She suddenly felt bad for Ino; cleaning up after Shikamaru had to be something like this.

She pushed aside the clothes she had just finished folding to reveal yet another cardboard box. Groaning, she tugged open the flaps and peered inside. This one was filled with VHS tapes. _Why aren't these with the others? _ Curious, she took the top one off the pile. She turned the tape around in her hands, looking for a label. She found a slip of paper taped to the front. Written in an unfamiliar scrawl was the word _Kakashi_.

Sakura blinked in surprise. Kakashi's name was the last thing she had anticipated; she had been expecting to find some sort of softcore porn Asuma had wanted to hide from his fiancée. She noted that the tape was fully rewound and wondered who had watched it last. Was it a long-forgotten tape of Kakashi's he had lent out to Asuma? Or maybe a film _of _Kakashi? Intrigued, Sakura put the tape carefully to the side. She was about to search the box further, but was interrupted by a loud "Sakura-saaan!"

With a start, Sakura turned to see a young, black-haired boy standing in the doorway to the closet. The automatic smile was on her face before she could remember to be angry with him.

"Hey, Akio," she said cheerfully. "What is it?"

Having gotten her attention, Akio relaxed; he only shouted when he had to. "Mom says you can go home."

"Really?" Sakura asked. She twisted her head to look at the part of the closet she hadn't even touched yet. "I don't know, there's still a lot to do here…"

Akio rolled his eyes; he never had much patience for adults. "She says you've done enough. The rest…" He interrupted himself with a sigh of resignation. "The rest is for me."

Although he was a young boy, Sakura couldn't hide her sadistic smile as he sourly handed her her bag. "Have fun, Akitchan," she said, standing up. Akio crossed his arms, turning his head to the side and grumbling mutinous. Noticing that he had looked away, Sakura took the opportunity to swipe the video from where she had placed it and stow it in her bag. She passed Akio, giving him a condescending pat on the head, and headed towards the door.

"Thanks for all your help," Kurenai called as Sakura turned the knob to leave.

"Whenever you need me, just call," Sakura said; Kurenai responded with an appreciative grunt and Sakura left the apartment. She hurried down the steps and out into the cool November air, buttoning her coat hastily as she went.


	2. One: Caught Unawares

Ah, this once came out earlier than I expected, nn? I was so pleasantly surprised by the positive response the prologue got. Hopefully, this next (and considerably longer) installment will not disappoint! Oh, and this story starts in early November. Sakura is 23 and Kakashi is 38.

* * *

In the years since Sasuke's return at sixteen, Sakura had gone through a lot of changes. After attaining the rank of jounin at twenty-one, she decided to take a break from the field and work at the hospital. It turned out to be a good decision; although she was remarkably talented in the physical arts, medicine had always been her true calling. She also enjoyed being able to stay in the village; she got to see a lot more of her friends and even got to know some of the civilians. As her comrades matured, she grew closer to some while drifting away from others.

Probably the most notable of her recently forged friendships was the one she shared with Kakashi. Although they had been working on missions together since she was twelve, throughout her genin and chuunin career she had always felt that he looked down on her. When she reached jounin, however, it was like she was exposed to a whole new side of him. Kakashi was no longer just an undefined point on the horizon; they were now, for the most part, equals. At a rate that surprised Sakura, their relationship developed from well-acquainted colleagues to the closest of friends. In some ways, Sakura was closer to him than to Ino or Naruto; their chemistry was impeccable.

Despite their close bond, there were still a lot of bridges they needed to cross; Sakura had never even seen his face yet. Kakashi had few close friends, all of whom he had known since childhood. Sakura figured that they probably knew much more about Kakashi's past since they had probably experienced parts of it, but to someone fourteen years his junior most of his background was murky. This was why Sakura was so excited to see what this mysterious tape could possibly reveal. She didn't let herself consider the possibility that the movie had simply _belonged _to Kakashi; she was convinced it was _about _him.

Cursing her choice to lock the door, she shoved her key into the lock and turned it with a force strong enough to incapacitate a grown man. Slamming the door behind her, she ran to her living area and hopped over the couch, landing unceremoniously on a pile of pillows. She slipped off and was in front of the TV immediately, unzipping her bag and taking out the tape. Here, she actually managed to calm down enough to put the tape in carefully; she knew from experience how finicky VCRs could be. After carefully sliding the tape into the VCR and clicking the power button, she backed up onto the couch again and sat, poised on the edge, waiting for the blue screen to cut off and reveal the tape's secrets.

After a few agonizing moments, the tape made a zipping noise and cut to a shot of an unfamiliar street in Konoha. Sakura watched religiously as the camera swept the surrounding area, eventually whitewashed as the cameraman pointed it at the sun. There was some muttering before the focus returned to the street ahead, and then a familiar voice issued from off camera. "Hello, ladies and gentlemen," the gruff voice announced. "I am your narrator, Sarutobi Asuma." The corner of Sakura's mouth twitched as she noted the egotistical drawl of Asuma's voice. "You may remember me from such works of art as 'History of Ichiraku', and perhaps from less pleasant series, like 'The Life and Times of Maito Gai'. I assure you, however, that the following series of films will be of a much greater interest to you; here, for the first time, I, the brave narrator, will sacrifice my own extremities to bring you…" Here, Asuma made a drum roll on a nearby wall while holding the camera steady with the other hand. "The first edition of the Hatake Kakashi series!" The pitch of his voice rose as he imitated a cheering crowd before coughing once and proceeding down the street.

Sakura's eyes were wide as she watched the slow progression of the camera. The part of Konoha being shown on film was darker than she was used to seeing, the buildings more densely packed. Judging by the state of some of those buildings, this area was also considerably older than most. As a shabby apartment building came into view, Asuma came to a stop. The camera panned up and down the building before zooming in on a particular window on the third floor.

"This, my dear viewers, is where the subject of today's documentary lives," Asuma explained. "He's lived here a majority of his life and, thanks to my connections in high places, is at home today. Now, our friend Kakashi has led quite a thrilling life so far." Sakura's heart skipped a beat. "Long ago, when Kakashi was but a wee boy, his mother happened upon a funny mushroom and ate it. Unfortunately, this resulted in her eventual invisibility."

Sakura felt her heart sinking as she narrowed her eyes in confusion— what sort of bullshit was this supposed to be?

"Shortly afterwards, Kakashi was pushed into a deep, deep hole with pointy things in it and is still in it to this day— he just doesn't know it yet. After that… well, not much happened until a big tree chopped itself down and the sun turned off. He couldn't see in the dark, so he tripped and broke his brain."

_Broke his brain? _ Sakura was more than a little confused by now. As far as she knew, Kakashi didn't suffer from any sort of mental illnesses— unless he was secretly an autistic savant, but she couldn't really picture that.

"A surprising fact about Kakashi is that he is a picky eater. He is, however, developing a taste for milk. Regardless of the maturity of his taste buds, however, he hates tempura."

Sakura sank into the couch a little more as Asuma returned the camera's attention to the front door of the apartment building. Feeling slightly disappointed but still hopeful, she watched as Asuma stopped in front of the buzzer. There was a grid full of buttons beside names of residents; Sakura spotted the peeling piece of tape that read "Hatake Kakashi" in cramped printing.

"Hmm… to press or not to press, that is the question…" After contemplating the small, gray button, he shrugged and pushed open the door. The next minute or so consisted of a rather boring highlight of the stairs, accompanied by the occasional half-hearted comment from Asuma. Finally, the camera leveled and Asuma started walking down a dimly lit hallway. The drab paint of the cement walls peeled in places and the black carpet did an insufficient job of covering the concrete floor. Asuma came to a stop in front of the penultimate door on the right side, turning to face the door with the camera.

"Again… should I knock, or…?" The sarcasm in his tone left little doubt in Sakura's mind that Kakashi would be caught unawares by Asuma's entry. Sure enough, Asuma gave no warning before silently turning the knob and pushing the door open.

Revealed were what was clearly a pair of moving figures, but the camera shook and lost some of its focus. Sakura craned her neck to see what had been revealed; when the camera refocused, her mouth dropped open in shock. Entangled on a couch directly across from the open door were a teenage Kakashi and brown-haired girl, making out with what appeared to be a burning passion. Asuma muttered "Holy shit" and spit his cigarette out.

This alerted Kakashi and the woman to a third presence; they fell off the couch in surprise, Kakashi landing on top of her. The camera shook as Asuma started to double over in laughter.

Kakashi jumped to his feet immediately and stormed over to Asuma, shielding his beet red face with an arm. The girl in the background stumbled, picking herself up while trying to shield her chest; Sakura thought she might have been missing a shirt.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Kakashi demanded, both eyes narrowed in fury. They were focused on a spot slightly to the left of the camera (where Asuma was probably standing) before swiveling to lock with the camera. "Is that thing…?" His eyes widened as he realized that the camera was recording.

"It's art!" Asuma shouted nervously, his voice trembling under Kakashi's murderous glare. "I thought you'd be a much more interesting subject than— than—"

"Than somebody who's not willing to snap your fucking camera in half?" Sakura had never seen Kakashi this upset before.

"Don't try to ruin my masterpiece, it's—" Before he could explain further, the arm Kakashi wasn't using to block his face shot out. There was a loud "click" as he cut the camera off, leaving Sakura laughing hysterically at a blank screen.

After her initial mirth died down, Sakura reached for the remote and hit 'pause'. She needed a few moments to actually consider what she was seeing. If Asuma hadn't interrupted the passionate moment between Kakashi and the unknown woman, they could've progressed all the way to sex. That an event like that could be caught on tape excited Sakura at the same time it frightened her. She was wary of hitting 'play' and witnessing the rest of whatever Asuma had filmed, but she argued with herself that although this installment had been revealing, it hadn't been _bad_. Sakura had just seen yet another unfamiliar side of Kakashi. As she pressed her finger to the button on the remote, she wondered what other sides of him would be unearthed from these films.

At first, nothing happened. There was about half a minute of static before the screen faded into black. Sakura's heart sank for a second time as she realized there must be nothing more on the tape. With a sigh, she leaned forward to take the tape out. As she was reaching for the 'eject' button on the VCR, a voice from the television said, "Oh, that's disgusting, do we really need a close-up on _Gai_?"

Sakura froze and watched as the camera zoomed out from what turned out to be an enormous eyebrow. After the slow clicking of a dial, a face came into view: the camera was turned on the face of a younger Maito Gai, flashing his trademark smile and winking seductively at the camera. Asuma made a noise of disgust before turning the camera to the owner of the voice spoken, Shiranui Genma. His hair was longer than Sakura was used to seeing it and a cigarette dangled from between his lips instead of a senbon. There was the sound of a sharp inhalation and smoke drifted in front of the camera as Asuma took a drag from his own cigarette, murmuring something about "just getting the hang of things". Gai coughed from off camera.

"Please!" he said, sounding as if he were pinching his nose. "It's one thing for you reckless youths to poison your own lungs with that garbage, but please show some respect to those of us who wish to preserve our own health! Am I not correct in demanding so, Kakashi?"

The camera just caught Genma rolling his eyes as it moved to Kakashi. Clearly uninterested, Kakashi was loosely holding a beer in one hand and Icha Icha in the other. This seemed to aggravate Gai, who exclaimed, aghast, "Kakashi! Not you, too, my sweet scarecrow of a friend! Your liver works tirelessly to filter toxins and keep your body youthful!"

Ignoring Gai, Genma's voice drifted lazily across the room. "Sooo, Kakashi… I must admit I'm surprised but very proud in your sudden interest in porn." He laughed drunkenly, leading Sakura to wonder if it was just nicotine in that cigarette. In response to the comment, Kakashi merely grunted and took a sip of his beer. Sakura hoped to catch a glimpse of his face, but he performed the action so fast she wouldn't have known if his bottle weren't emptier.

Gai sounded serious as his voice rang out in scolding. "Your behavior is less than youthful, young warriors," he said warningly. "Not only is it detrimental to your health, but your actions are forbidden by the law!"

As Genma was still chuckling to himself and Asuma was smoking from behind the camera, Kakashi, still the camera's focus, responded. "Defiance for the rules and disregard for physical welfare," he pointed out dryly, "are integral parts of the teenage years."

There was no sound from Gai's corner of the room for several moments before he heartily boomed, "A healthy body is key to a spirited youth!"

To this, Kakashi shrugged and took another sip of his beer. Enraged, Gai immediately exploded.

"How dare you show your body such disrespect, Kakashi? After all that you have survived as a fearless soldier of the Leaf Village, I do not understand how you can willingly put such poison through your system! Your undeniable skills in battle will only deteriorate as you continue to weaken your body and your mind with these vices of yours!"

Gai's rant continued on much like that for at least three minutes more, but as Asuma and Genma had been reduced to roaring laughter and Kakashi was apparently engrossed in his book, Gai's voice eventually faltered.

For the next few minutes, not much happened; the men sat in bored silence until Asuma spoke up. "Well, all of the gentlemen here have had their turn," he announced, "so I think that it's Kakashi's turn to be interviewed!" Genma cheered as Gai launched into a series of "oohs" and "aahs".

"I remember my interview," he recalled fondly, nostalgia coloring his voice. "Why, it was a rainy day, much like this one, and Asuma and I were alone in my apartment together…"

Asuma spoke over Genma's suggestive wolf whistle. "It didn't happen like he explains it! Besides," he added, "he talked so long I ran out of tape just before he got to his _Academy years_." As Genma chuckled appreciatively, Asuma began to slowly zoom up on Kakashi's masked face. He adopted a raspy voice, saying darkly, "Tell me, Hatake Kakashi… What is your deepest, _darkest _secret?"

Indifferent, Kakashi turned a page in Icha Icha.

Returning his voice to its usual tone, he asked, "Okay then… Boxers or briefs?" Still, there was no response.

Genma chose this time to chime in, suggesting, "Well, if he doesn't feel like talking, we could always ask someone who knows _exactly_ what Kakashi uses to protect his family jewels… like, hmm… Rin?"

Kakashi's eyes flashed up and he fixed the off-screen Genma with a hard glare. He was silent for a moment before providing a sarcastic but cold answer.

"Commando."

Suddenly, Gai came into view; he had jumped to his feet and was towering over Kakashi, shouting furiously.

"Commando? _Commando_? Hatake Kakashi, how DARE you steal my THING?!"

"I didn't— wait, _what_? Your—"

Gai gesticulated wildly, spit flying from his mouth as he fired accusations at a mortified Kakashi. After a few seconds, the tape grew fuzzy and cut to static.

Sakura had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. Watching Gai completely explode at Kakashi was one of the funniest things she had ever seen, and the look on Kakashi's face had been absolutely _priceless_. She wasn't too worried about his underage drinking; she had started drinking alcohol a few years before she was "legal". She was actually a little relieved that he hadn't been smoking whatever Genma was. Wondering if there was more on the tape, she pressed 'fast forward', but the screen almost immediately turned to blue, signaling the end of the tape. She allowed herself to feel a small disappointment before her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Startled, she hopped off of the couch and ran to peek through the eyehole. She was greeted with a distorted image of Kakashi's head. _Speak of the devil! _ Yelping, she hurried to her television and ejected the tape. She opened up the cabinet beneath the TV, searching for an open spot to inconspicuously stow the movie.

"Hey, Sakuraaa…" Kakashi's complaint drifted in from underneath her door. She couldn't blame him for being confused; she usually didn't scream and run away from him. Still, she was feeling very frazzled at being interrupted and couldn't stop herself from snapping at him.

"Cool it, Kakashi! I was just getting dressed!" In order to give some credibility to her lie, she ran to the closet, slipped off her pants, and threw on her bathrobe. Tying the waist in a secure knot, she unlocked the door.

"And I suppose you couldn't finish?" Kakashi's eye was crinkled in amusement as Sakura stepped aside to let him in. He headed straight for the couch, immediately making himself comfortable. Muttering darkly, Sakura gave another self-conscious tug to her bathrobe.

"Nnn… hey, Sakura, what were you watching?" Sakura's neck cricked as she whipped her head around; Kakashi was pointing lazily at the static on the screen.

She silently cursed herself before making a quick recovery. "Ah, just some sappy chick flick. It would be of no interest to you." Apparently in acceptance of the explanation, Kakashi let his arm fall. He rested it on the arm of the couch, drumming his fingers idly.

"How much do you know about my taste in movies?" he teased. He turned his head to follow her, eye crinkled in a smile, as she walked around the couch to stand in front of him. She planted herself directly in front of the TV with her hands on her hips.

His smile dissipated as he frowned at her in mock annoyance. "Hey, I was watching that."

"The static?" Sakura raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Try again." Kakashi's brow furrowed in confusion, but he said nothing.

In truth, Sakura was a little unnerved. Something about seeing him sit on the couch bothered her. After a moment of contemplation, the image of his body intertwined with a woman's on a couch similar to the one he was on now came to mind. She regarded him silently, trying to match the calm and collected man in front of her with the horny teenager on the video. The connection was there, but it was pretty fuzzy. At first, she couldn't really picture the Kakashi she knew in such a state of vulnerability. She struggled to imagine him just letting all of his boundaries down like that… straddling a curvy woman on the couch… leaning over her seductively… gazing into her green eyes… lovingly pushing a strand of pink hair behind her ear…

_Whoa…!_

"Get off the couch." If Kakashi hadn't been confused before, he certainly must have been now; however, Sakura wasn't about to explain her sudden mood swing. She was having a hard enough time taming the blush she could feel rising in her face.

"Umm… why?"

Sakura sighed in exasperation.

"Do I really need to explain?" she asked incredulously. Kakashi nodded once and Sakura took her right arm off her side and shook a finger at him.

"_You _just came barging in here uninvited while I was getting dressed. Besides…" she added the last part in a threatening growl. "I'm the _lady_."

Kakashi's eyebrows flew up in skepticism. "You're certainly not acting much like one," he countered.

Sakura straightened and looked vainly at her fingernails. Pursing out her lips, she drawled, "Is _this _better?" Chuckling, Kakashi stood up and surrendered the couch. Beaming, Sakura dropped the act at once and sank into her couch cushions. Sighing, Kakashi sat down on the floor, his back to the television. Sakura flashed him a triumphant grin, to which he only shook his head.

As a comfortable silence developed, Sakura wondered if she should try asking him some questions. Nothing about the girl yet— she felt it might be too soon for something like that. Aside from his mystery lover, she was most curious about the nonsense Asuma had spouted at the beginning of the first movie. Although she had initially dismissed it as a truckload of bullshit, now she felt that perhaps there was some truth she could extract from amidst the muddled stories. Leaning forward a little, Sakura said, "Kakashi?"

"Hmm?" Kakashi, who had been letting his eye wander lazily across the room, switched his attention to Sakura.

Sakura bit her lip, trying to decide which "fact" to ask him about. Picking one at random, she asked, "Have you ever broken your brain?"

She expected Kakashi to peer at her in confusion or blink in surprise. Instead, his face didn't change at all. Once, she had thought that an expressionless Kakashi meant an indifferent one, but after coming to know him better she had realized that he was just schooling his features so as not to give away a reaction. This immediately sparked her interest; did he actually know what Asuma had been referring to?

Quiet for several long moments, Kakashi eventually spoke. "Well, you know, they're so fragile these days… I've broken it a few times now, but there's a guy in town who fixes them up wonderfully." He punctuated the lie with an eye-crinkling smile.

Utterly unconvinced, Sakura pushed her bottom lip out in a pout. "Oh, come on, Kakashi," she pressed. "I know better than that… Can't you just tell me?" When his smile faded into a wary frown, she decided to play one of her trump cards. "We are best friends, you know… There's no one closer…"

Again, Kakashi fell into silence. Crossing her fingers beneath the pillow on her lap, she waited for his response, hoping this silence would yield more answers than his last. Finally, he sighed. "As good as," he murmured. He was not looking at her. She waited for him to elaborate, but after several uneventful minutes, she resigned. Lazily, she shifted her position, yawned, and asked, "Boxers or briefs?"

Kakashi's gaze returned to her, his eye conveying a doubt of her sanity. This was not the first time she had asked him a "ridiculous" question, as he put it, and more often than not this "Are you crazy?" look was his answer. After a moment of apparent hesitation, he asked, "Sakura… Is it your time of the month?"

As she had explicitly told him how much she hated him asking that, she knew he was doing this in pure spite. A vein twitched in her temple, but Sakura did not take the bait. Instead, she smirked. "Why are you so sensitive about the nature of your underwear?"

Unsurprisingly, Kakashi allowed his gaze to wander across the room before answering. Sakura kept her gaze locked on him as he appeared to be observing the area near her door. A few moments later, he turned to smile at her.

"It's because I like to wear frilly lace thongs, but I get squeamish when other people see them, so—"

Sakura flushed and whirled around to see a pair of her panties on the ground next to the pants she had taken off. When she was in a hurry to pretend she was getting undressed, she hadn't even notice that they came off with her pants. Turning around with murder on her face, she shouted, "PERVERT!" at the empty room. Fuming, she turned again to see that Kakashi had disappeared into her kitchen.

"What's for dinner?" he asked her cheerfully from his seat on the table.

Mumbling something about mooching, she stalked over, kicking her clothes out of the way.

"Sandwiches," she said bluntly. "Off the table." Kakashi obliged, sliding into a wooden chair.

They struck up a conversation as Sakura prepared the food, occasionally lapsing into a light banter. As per their unspoken agreement, Sakura averted her eyes as Kakashi ate his meal. Plan in mind, she started steering the conversation towards friends of Kakashi's. He talked at length about strange things Gai had forced him into and even a fling he had with Kurenai once. All of this was normally fascinating to Sakura, but the friend of his she was most interested in tonight was the one Kakashi seemed to be avoiding.

"What about Asuma?" she finally asked. "What did he think of that?"

"Oh, Asuma had left for the monks already," Kakashi said dismissively. "He was in no position to care about what I was doing with Kurenai."

Sakura nodded mechanically. "Why did he leave for the monks?"

"Mmm…" Kakashi considered the question. "He always ranted about his 'reasons' for leaving, but it all boiled down to an act of defiance against his father."

"What sorts of things did he do in his spare time?" Sakura didn't care if it was too much of a leap; she wasn't particularly interested in Asuma's family problems.

Sakura employed some careful prodding as Kakashi talked about the gambling, smoking, and sexual escapades (which, for Sakura's sake, he merely skimmed over). Eventually, she managed to get to the point she had been aiming for all evening.

"Yeah," Kakashi said in response to a question, "Asuma sort of had an artsy side…" He seemed to think she would have reason to contradict this statement, for he defended it almost immediately. "Well, I mean, Asuma went through a lot of… phases. They got pretty eccentric and were often invasive, especially…" Here, he squinted at the wall behind Sakura as if trying to remember something. "For awhile, when Asuma was in his late teens, he always carried around a video camera. It used to really annoy us… He would tote it around everywhere and turn it on at the most inappropriate times…. You know, he actually filmed series about each of his friends… he would document 'significant segments of our lives'." Kakashi punctuated the final statement with a noise of amusement.

Now that the conversation was right where she wanted it, Sakura was having a hard time not spilling everything. Instead, she took a few seconds to calm herself down before saying coyly, "So, Kakashi… You said 'significant segments of _our _lives'… Did you have a series?"

The change in Kakashi's demeanor was immediate. Although he was always good at hiding sudden emotional transitions, Sakura had been scrutinizing him for the slightest giveaway. He had grown visibly tenser at her question, and when he next spoke it was clear he was being more guarded with his words. "Well… yes," he said reluctantly, "but…" He sighed. "It didn't turn out very well." Although it was clear that Kakashi was trying to kill the line of questioning, this response only piqued Sakura's interest. She experienced a moment of hesitation; would he consider more prying suspicious? Another side of her countered this quickly. She and Kakashi were best friends, so it was only natural for her to be interested. Besides, willingly or not, he had offered her the bait with such an ambiguous answer.

"What do you mean?" Sakura pressed. "What happened?" Such generic questions, she figured, would not betray her deeper knowledge of the subject; however, Kakashi said nothing.

This silence only elicited more begging on her part. Finally, he snapped, "It doesn't matter. Asuma burned them all anyway."

His reaction sent Sakura's mind into motion. Questions started swirling through her mind as she focused her gaze on a lock of his silver hair. _Why is he so annoyed about it? Is it just because I was being annoying, or does it go deeper? Does it have something to do with how they 'didn't turn out well'?_ The most pressing question, though, concerned the nature of the tapes themselves— what could have been so bad they needed to be burned? Clearly, whatever it was hadn't been enough to stop Asuma from keeping them in a cardboard box. Why would Asuma have lied to Kakashi? Did he claim to have burned them in an effort to placate an irate Copy Nin? Or had the tapes been so inconsequential that he had merely forgotten?

Sakura's train of thought was broken as Kakashi shook his head at her. He must have noticed that what he said, instead of dissuading her, had only gotten her more interested. "It's not that big a deal," he murmured; Sakura wasn't sure whom he was addressing. He shot her an eye-crinkling smile overflowing with false cheer. "Don't worry about it."

A disappointed sigh escaped Sakura's lips. She stood up to remove the ice cream from the freezer, plopping the container down on the counter and beginning to scoop enough for the two of them.

"Ah, Sakura," Kakashi protested, "I don't really like sweet things…" His voice faltered as she wordlessly pushed a bowl towards him and sat down with her own. Kakashi sighed in resignation and dutifully ate some of this ice cream. As she had during dinner, Sakura made sure to avoid looking directly at his face.

After Sakura heard Kakashi pull his mask up, she moved her gaze up to him. "Kakashi?" she asked. "Who's Rin?"

If Kakashi was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. He squinted at her; Sakura thought he might be scrutinizing her face for something, but she couldn't imagine what. "Have you been listening to Tsunade again?" he asked suspiciously.

Slowly, Sakura shook her head. It seemed that Kakashi still seemed to be expecting some sort of answer, so she cleared her throat and spoke. "I came across the name while doing some medical research," she said lightly. This was a very believable lie, Sakura figured; she figures that the girl must have been in the hospital at some point, so some record of a visit there would still exist.

Kakashi stared at Sakura for a long time before leaning back into his chair. "Rin," he said evenly, "was my teammate." He seemed to be finished, but Sakura gave him an expectant look.

"And?" she prodded.

"And friend?" Kakashi had put on an air of confusion that Sakura did not at all buy; this 'Rin' girl had been mentioned suggestively in the second tape, so Sakura was willing to bet she was the girl Kakashi had been making out with on his couch in the first. Despite her suspicions, Kakashi was much more accomplished at keeping things to himself than she was at extracting them. Realizing she would not get any more from him tonight, she tutted and finished her ice cream, shaking her head and muttering something about men. In an effort to cheer her up, Kakashi goaded her with a fake pout. She was no longer in the mood for his teasing, though, so she shot him a death glare. His face smoothed in an instant, and he excused himself from the table.

As he was heading for the door, he stopped. His back to where Sakura stood in the entryway of the kitchen, he asked, "Why did you think to ask _me _about Rin?"

Sakura's lack of response was a clear sign of her confusion, so he turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. "I'm curious," he said, "as to how you made the connection between me and a random name in the medical records… Why would you find such significance in a common name?"

For a few long moments, Sakura was stumped. She recovered by crossing her arms and adopting a matter-of-fact tone. "Your name was listed in the same report… you and your team had come in for some injury related to the war." A small bubble of pride swelled up inside Sakura; she was impressed with herself at coming up with such a rational lie. She knew that Kakashi had grown up during a war; if Rin was on Kakashi's team, chances were that they came in injured together at least once. Sakura hoped that it wouldn't be too much of a leap.

The blank expression on Kakashi's face remained unchanged. He scrutinized her for what felt to Sakura like an eternity before shrugging. "Just curious," he said. "Thanks for the food." With that, he left the apartment.

Once Sakura could no longer sense his chakra, she relaxed. She rolled her shoulders in an effort to release the pent-up tension. Sighing with relief, she cleaned up her kitchen in solitude. After taking a shower, she crawled into bed, thankful for the warmth of her thick blanket as it engulfed her body. For a while, she lay awake, contemplating all that had transpired that day. It had certainly been eventful, and she had a feeling that the days to follow would definitely be affected by the existence of these tapes. A series always implied more than one, maybe even more than two or three. If Sakura had seen and learned so much from just two movies on one tape, she could hardly imagine what she would uncover about her former sensei with an entire _series_. Granted, Asuma had had other friends to film, but Sakura was certain there were more tapes in that box with Kakashi's name on them. She was most eager to learn more about this Rin person; she had obviously meant a lot to Kakashi. If she had just been a short-term girlfriend like Kurenai, Sakura knew Kakashi would have no problem talking about her, but Sakura herself knew the bonds that developed between teammates and was sure Kakashi and Rin were much closer than what Kakashi had divulged thus far. Needless to say, she would, without doubt, be paying Kurenai (or at least her closet) another visit in the near future.

Although she had a thousand ideas and questions churning in her mind, sleep eventually overtook her. She drifted into unconsciousness, clinging to a firm determination to find the truth.


	3. Two: Fluctuations of Willpower

This one also came out surprisingly quickly. It's quite a bit shorter than the last one (FF puts it at about 4,000 words), but I had to end it here. The next chapter is too important to be broken up. I bow my head in thanks for the lovely reviews I have been getting. The story alerts are also greatly appreciated; your voices are often silent, but your dedication (or at least mild, amused interest) shines through every time I get a golden email in my inbox. (Because these and irksome Facebook alerts are all that I get these days... along with the rare jewel of a fan fiction update.) Happy reading!

* * *

A stale silence hung in the hospital's hall of records. The only sounds were the gentle scratching of papers and the frustrated sighs of one kunoichi as she rifled through them. Instead of eating her usual bento box, Sakura had taken her lunch break to search. She was going through closed files, looking for a girl named 'Rin' of around Kakashi's age. She figured that she might as well act upon her little lie to Kakashi and get some information on Rin via the hospital's file-keeping system.

Eventually, she came upon a file that looked promising. The name "Kurumi Rin" was printed across the top in kanji, the furigana sitting atop them faded nearly beyond recognition. Underneath it was a picture of an unsmiling teenage girl. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders and there were strange purple markings on her face. Sakura thought they must either be tattoos or hereditary marks, much like the ones the Inuzuka family had. It was strange imagining that this distant girl was the same as the flushed and passionate one Sakura had seen in the movie; however, her date of birth came within only two months of Kakashi's and she was certain she had seen those strange facial markings on the girl in the video.

Leafing through the file, Sakura discovered that Rin actually worked in the hospital during and after the war. There was a long list of injuries and afflictions Rin had come in with (in Konoha, these were all logged in case Intelligence or the medical research team needed something)… they ranged from flu and frostbite to gruesome battle wounds and concussions. There was also an extensive list of surgeries undertaken and performed. One leapt out at Sakura, making her heart skip a beat; one of the surgeries listed was an impromptu transplant of a Sharingan eye on the battlefield. Her mind immediately jumped to Kakashi; had this girl given him his Sharingan? She scanned the short description of the surgery provided in the file; the donor was listed as Uchiha Obito. Sakura racked her brains for the name. It didn't ring a bell, but that didn't matter; Kakashi's eye had once belonged to this Obito person. Whatever the circumstances of this mission had been, he must not have needed his eye anymore, so Kurumi Rin gave it to Kakashi. Sakura guessed that the three of them were a team and the mission had gone awry. It was sad, but she had a feeling it was true. She wondered if Kakashi had a team picture lying around that she could look at to confirm her conjecture; knowing him, it was entirely plausible. He held his teammates in such high regard.

She continued to scan the file, looking now for what had happened to Rin. She skimmed the rest of the file until she came to "Cause of death". Eagerly, she read on, but was startled to find only the words "Mission complications".

_Mission complications? _ Sakura was more than a little confused. The specific cause of death was _always _listed in the official medical records. Sakura knew this from having to fill many out herself; even several decades after a shinobi's death, the circumstances of his or her demise could be connected to current events. ANBU, the Hokage, the medical research team, Intelligence… so many people relied on accurate medical records. Sakura had never seen such a vague answer. Almost all shinobi died of "mission complications"; it wasn't much of a help to anyone to list this as the exclusive cause. Regardless, Sakura read the date of death following the mysterious cause and did the math to figure that Rin would have died around twenty-one years ago when Kakashi (and Rin, judging by her date of birth) were seventeen.

The images of Kakashi and the brown-haired girl kissing on the couch flashed through her mind. _"Rin… was my teammate."_

"_And?"_

"_And friend?"_

Sakura experienced a flicker of doubt. Could it be that she was mistaken in assuming this girl was Kakashi's mystery lover? She was certain that this was the Rin Genma had referred to, but was it merely a coincidence that Genma was making suggestive remarks about Rin? People like Kiba made suggestive comments about her all the time, but that didn't mean she was involved with anyone he mentioned. Was it possible that the girl Kakashi was kissing was not Rin? That he had a different girlfriend? That Rin was merely someone he was assumed to be going out with, as it was with Sakura and Naruto?

_No, _she thought, _Kakashi was just lying. He admitted that he had a fling with Kurenai once, but I don't think he would have told me right off about an actual relationship. If something bad happened to this Rin girl, it wasn't likely he would tell me right away. After all, how many times have I asked him about his Sharingan and gotten lies in return? This _has _to be her._

Looking down at the file, though, she couldn't help but feel a little guilty, even if she was now convinced this was the right girl. She carefully slid the file back into its proper slot and left the room.

(…)

That evening, after Sakura had grabbed a bite to eat and taken a shower, she stood in cotton pants and an oversize T-shirt, staring at the television from behind the couch.

_To watch, or not to watch_? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Asuma's resonated in her mind. She had already seen the tape once; would it be weird to watch it again? Would it be exceeding the leeway provided by her initial curiosity?

On the other hand, she wanted to confirm the identity of Kakashi's mystery lover. She was almost positive it was Rin, but she wanted to see for sure. Besides, knowing who the girl was gave a whole new sense of meaning to the movie. Her decision made, she plopped down on the couch and rewound the tape before hitting 'play'.

As Asuma began to narrate the video, Sakura paid serious attention to his words. The beginning was just obligatory bravado, but when it came to the botched narration of Kakashi's life, Sakura was perched on the edge of her seat. She tried to make sense of it, recognizing that what she had thought was nonsense could actually be symbolic. After Asuma was done describing Kakashi's life, she paused the tape. Leaning back into the couch, she started to make some inferences.

The line she was, by now, most familiar with was "He couldn't see in the dark, so he tripped and broke his brain". She just knew it meant _something_, especially after Kakashi's quiet answer to her question. _"As good as,_" he had said, and Sakura knew there was more to this story. It must have been a traumatic experience, whatever it was… Something clicked in her mind. _Could it be the time he got his Sharingan?_ Excited at this possibly revelation, she strained her memory to think of what other inferences she could make.

She was fairly certain that the line about being pushed into a hole was symbolic of being trapped. It could suggest anything, although Sakura was leaning towards the shinobi life.

Still confused, she rewound the tape for a few seconds and re-watched the narration. Pausing it afterwards as she did before, she pulled out a notebook and a pen and made a list of her theories. Entitling it "Kakashi's Life?", she began to arrange her thoughts.

She thought that the "big tree" could definitely refer to Konoha. Perhaps the tree cutting itself down symbolized Konoha putting itself in a compromising position. Kakashi had grown up during the war, so it would make sense that something like that could have happened. The idea of the sun turning off suggested that something bad happened, which would logically follow Konoha making a big mistake. Breaking his brain, as Sakura had already thought, could mean that something happened to mess with his head. His mother eating a funny mushroom and turning invisible obviously meant that something happened to his mother: either death or disappearance. Sakura thought death was more likely; it sounded like the woman had ingested a lethal plant. Again, the hole with pointy sticks in it was a pretty obvious one; Kakashi had been trapped somehow. She had no idea what was meant by 'developing a taste for milk'. She knew from eating dinner with him that Kakashi abhorred tempura. Could it be that tempura carried bad memories for him?

She was initially quite satisfied with her work. As she took care of her ablutions, however, she felt an itch for more. Kakashi had given her his phone number in case of emergency, but she seldom called him. After some deliberation, she went over to the phone and called him.

She stood waiting nervously, clutching the receiver for dear life as the dull ring resounded. On the third ring, there was a click, and a groggy voice said, "Hatake."

It was certainly a different experience, talking to him on the phone; he seemed so vulnerable when he had been stripped of his appearance. "Hey," she said. "It's Sakura."

There was a pause. The phone crackled with static as Kakashi sighed. "What do you want, Sakura?" he asked wearily.

She started prattling on as if she hadn't heard his question. "So, my day was pretty uneventful," she said, her voice unusually fast. "I had a lot of routine surgeries and check-ups to take care of; no excess of bloodshed or dirty battle wounds to clean up, you know? There was this one guy who came in complaining about his back, and it turned out he just had a cold… for some reason we thought it was some sort of hereditary disease at first, so we had to do all these tests and I expended a lot of chakra for nothing—"

"Why did you call?" Kakashi's interruption cut her off mid-sentence. She made a noise that conveyed the pout obvious on her lips.

"What does tempura mean to you?"

There was a very long pause.

"Tempura?"

Sakura nodded. It took her several moments to realize that he couldn't see her, so she supplied him with a "yes".

This time, there was hardly a pause at all before he said, "Nothing… I just don't like it."

He must have sensed her wordless expectancy, so he added, "Well, you know, I really like eggplant stew… A lot of people think that's weird, but, well… Ever since I was a little kid…"

Sakura cut him off with a sharp, "What about milk?"

Another pause. He made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a chuckle, but the reception was too poor to tell. "It's funny you should ask that," he said, amusement evident in his tone.

Sakura's heart leapt. "Why?"

"Well," he said, "I never had much of a tolerance for sugar, so I was routinely made fun of for thinking milk was a little too sweet… Nobody ever agreed with me."

Sakura said nothing. This time, a little bit of worry leaked through the phone from Kakashi's end. "Was that the wrong answer?"

"I'm not sure what I was looking for," she said quietly. She surprised herself at the melancholy and suggested angst of that statement.

"Oh…" More silence followed.

Grasping at straws, Sakura tried to bring up the tempura again. "Kakashi, are you _positive _tempura holds no special meaning to you?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "I assure you, I _just don't like _tempura."

She weighed his answer before giving in. _Did you honestly think it could be that simple? _ she asked herself quietly. "Good night," she said in a flat, defeated voice.

She half-expected Kakashi to give her a sarcastically cheery goodnight, but when his "Night, Sakura" came out in an extremely weary voice, she thought that perhaps he didn't have the heart to. He hung up the phone first, leaving the dial tone buzzing in her ear. She listened to it for a little while before snapping out of her little reverie and putting the phone down.

_Why am I getting so worked up about some silly tempura? _ she wondered. Laughing a little, she shook her head and went to bed.

(…)

The next morning, Sakura stood in front of her mirror brushing her teeth. She was briefly running over the previous night's conversation. She had gotten awfully worked up about that tempura… at the time, it had seemed very important. In retrospect, her frustration was pretty irrational. As she moved the brush mechanically around her mouth, her mind drifted towards the two movies she had seen so far. The second had been entertaining enough and had given her the name "Rin", but the first was more central in her thoughts. For a fleeting second she thought that perhaps the relationship between Kakashi and Rin was something she maybe shouldn't touch. After all, Rin was dead and the relationship was done. He would tell her in due time, wouldn't he?

The unwatched tapes in Kurenai's closet dangled in her mind's eye, tempting her to give in to her curiosity and watch them. She pushed those thoughts away with a small burst of willpower.

_I can do well enough without those tapes,_ she assured her determined reflection.

She spat her toothpaste out, registering her sore gums and the blood in her spit. After rinsing her mouth out and washing her face, she went over to the VCR. She considered the machine for a while before ejecting the tape and stowing it into the depths of her closet. Satisfied, she wiped her hands and smiled.

(…)

The next week was rather uneventful. Sakura's biggest accomplishment was successfully stopping herself from taking out the tape again. All of her friends were on missions; Kakashi had been sent out on a classified solo A-rank. It was times like this she resented working at the hospital, but she always reminded herself that she'd see them even less if she didn't.

It was now a lazy afternoon in Tsunade's office. Sakura was sitting with Shizune filling out papers that were not technically within their authority to sign. Tsunade, however, was "out", as she had so succinctly put it to Shizune; Sakura suspected drinking.

Bored with the tedious paperwork, Sakura started flipping through the list of teams expected back that day. Her heart skipped as she realized that Kakashi was supposed to be back today. Missions seemed to be the one thing Kakashi was seldom late for, so Sakura would almost certainly see him today. She had certainly missed him, more than any of her other friends. She was definitely looking forward to his return.

The room was silent save for the occasional light chatter. Sakura and Shizune got along well enough, but Shizune had immersed herself in the paperwork. Sakura watched with a mild awe as Shizune's hand flew across the paper, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Few people knew that Shizune handled more work than Tsunade did, but anyone who found out would hardly be surprised.

Sakura's thoughts were interrupted by noises coming from outside. These sounds matured into a voice they soon recognized as Tsunade's. Both of them relaxed a little, but not completely; it didn't sound like anything more serious than an angry reprimand, but it was never a good idea to let your guard down when Tsunade was in a bad mood.

Only seconds after her voice seemed far off in the distance, Tsunade kicked the door open, dragging none other than a limping Kakashi, who was bending over awkwardly as the Hokage pulled him forward.

Sakura jumped up. "Kakashi!" she exclaimed. "What in the world did you do _this_ time?"

He winced (from pain, she realized) and smiled. "Hey, Sakura," he said cheerfully.

An angry growl came from within Tsunade. She began to speak, her mouth curled in a snarl. "I was going to offer some sake to the dearly departed Jiraiya when I came across Kakashi" — here, she gave Kakashi an unappreciative tug at the arm — "lurking around the Stone, bleeding profusely."

Here, Tsunade's voice dropped to a mutter, no less dangerous than her shouts. (Privately, Sakura thought Tsunade was overreacting.) "Izumo and Kotetsu should have noticed him coming in like that, he's a complete mess—"

"Of course they _noticed_, Tsunade-sama, but they wouldn't have asked any questions— They would have made the completely rational assumption that I was heading to medical help—"

"I swear, your little visitation ritual will be the death of you—"

Kakashi's interruption was only a sarcastic mutter, but it made the room fall silent.

"I'd rather die at the Stone than in your goddamn hospital."

In a flash, Tsunade grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. She snarled ferociously into his impassive face. "Hatakes— they're all the same— so _oblivious_—" she spat. More ill mannered hissing followed this before she roughly released Kakashi. He stumbled, winced, and grabbed his ribs.

"Lady Tsunade, you shouldn't handle him like that," Shizune chided. "The man is injured." She moved to help Kakashi, but Sakura stepped forward first.

"I'll take care of him," she offered, gesturing towards Kakashi's state. Shizune looked surprised, but also a little relieved. Sakura had always picked up on an uneasiness that came over Shizune whenever she came too close to Kakashi. Sakura figured he probably frightened her; he could be a lot to handle sometimes, and Shizune had known him since childhood. Being several years his senior, Sakura imagined Shizune had thought of him as a kindergarten killer and was frightened by his presence.

Tsunade, unusually shaky, collapsed into her chair and took a deep swig of sake. She dismissed both Kakashi and Sakura, but not before reminding Kakashi that she still expected a mission report. "And it had better be twice as long as usual if you want to make up for scaring me like that," she said; it was not so much a suggestion as an order.

Kakashi nodded and hobbled out; Sakura followed. As she was leaving, she saw Shizune approach Tsunade. She heard Tsunade say something about being 'reminded of Sakumo' before the door closed loudly behind her.

Sakura sighed. She was used to Tsunade talking about things or people Sakura didn't know or understand, but she was a little more curious than usual this time. Tsunade had been 'reminded of Sakumo' by Kakashi— who or what was Sakumo? She quashed her curiosity by reminding herself of her little self-pledge and how she killed that itch when she put the tape away.

Pushing those thoughts to the side, she instead focused her attention on Kakashi. He was leaning heavily on the wall, clutching his side and breathing hard.

Sakura tutted before walking over to him, draping his left arm over her shoulder, hanging onto his left hand with her own, and wrapping her other arm securely around his waist. He grunted in pain but accepted her help without protest. She helped him all the way to his apartment, as he pointed out it was closer than her own.

Although Sakura had never actually been inside, she had a key in case of emergency (same as the phone number). She entered his apartment, flipping on a light and lowering him gently onto the couch. He was visibly in some considerable pain, the quarter of his face she could see shining with sweat.

She knelt down beside him, unzipping his vest and easing him up momentarily as she removed it. It was somewhat of a challenge removing his long-sleeved shirt, but he helped her the best he could and they removed it together. He was left in only his black undershirt, but it was torn and sticking to his skin. Pieces of fabric were loose in the blood and sweat congealing near his wounds.

"You should have sought immediate medical help," she scolded. She continued to speak as she began more carefully observing his wounds. "Why did you go the Memorial Stone first?" she wondered aloud. "Did you need to check in in case of death from injuries?"

Kakashi shrugged at her little joke, wincing as he realized too late that this was a painful idea. "I'd rather die here than in a hospital," he repeated.

Sakura's smile faded as she looked at him. "I thought you were just being sarcastic."

He evaded her penetrating eyes; it was hard to tell whether or not that was intentional. "It _was_ sarcasm, but it's true."

Sakura bit her lip for a moment before rolling up his pant leg and checking to see what his leg wound was. There was silence during the examination.

When Kakashi next spoke, she knew it was because he sensed her unhappiness and wanted to make amends. "Well, you know me," he said lightly. "I just hate hospitals."

Sakura strongly considered asking him why. "Be quiet; I have to heal your wounds." Kakashi complied; he did not make a sound during the entire healing process.

When Sakura was done, she sighed and wiped her forehead. Groaning, she sagged with relief. "It'll still be stiff for a while," she told him. "You should take it easy."

He nodded, and she stood up to leave. As she was just about to reach the door, he said, "Sakura."

She stopped and looked at him warily but curiously. The look in his eye seemed very sincere.

"I'm sorry for saying that," he said quietly; she didn't need to ask what he was referring to. "I really didn't mean anything creepy by it… I mean, I don't have a… a death wish or something."

In spite of herself, Sakura giggled, blushing almost immediately afterward in embarrassed realization. Kakashi smiled and rose unsteadily to his feet. When he stumbled a little, she moved to help him. He caught himself and laughed a little. "I'll be fine," he assured her.

Sakura gave him a skeptical look; he waved a hand at her dismissively. "I've lived through worse," he said.

Sakura knew it would me most sensible to leave it at that, but she had some serious emotional momentum going and didn't particularly care. She raised an eyebrow. "Like?"

He considered the question before fixing her with a serious and almost pained look.

"Tsunade once kicked me in the balls with her heels on." His leg seemed to twitch at the memory.

"I doubt your genitals are still functional after such a brutal assault," Sakura laughed.

He mocked a pout. "My fertility and performance level have been unaffected, thank you very much."

"I'll take your word on the performance end," she said, "but how do you know about the former?"

He seemed to give the question thought before shrugging. "I'll just have to cross my fingers," he said, smiling.

Sakura was tempted to ask him which outcome he'd be crossing his fingers for — sterile or fertile — but she bit her tongue. Instead, she shook her head. "Good-bye, Kakashi."

He gave her a cheerful wave, and she left.

(…)

That night, Sakura had dreams of silver-haired children with green eyes running circles around her, Kakashi laughing silently in the background. She had no recollection of this in the morning.


	4. Three: Sweet Pea

Ah, you know, I was so excited to write this one that I finished it in two days. I wanted to wait to publish it until Wednesday-- give it a week, you know. But here I am, sitting in front of my computer screen, and I can't wait four more days. I don't think I ran this through the spell/grammar check (although it's not to be relied on), so feel free to point out any errors you think you might find. And I'd like to say that this story is probably going to have a good number of chapters... I prefer many shorter-ish chapters to a few (or even a lot) long-ish chapters. Enjoy! (Hmm, maybe that's not the right sentiment for this chapter...)

* * *

Mid-November brought a chill accompanying the clouds hanging low in the sky. Sakura was making an emergency shopping trip, but was stuck standing behind an old lady in line at the supermarket. Supremely bored, she waited as the woman bickered with the apathetic teen cashier. Sakura tapped her fingers impatiently on a magazine rack, her eyes lazily sweeping the various pretentious gossip mags.

"Hey, Sakura." A cheery greeting came behind her as she was met with a familiar smell. She turned around to see Kakashi, all but hidden behind a teetering pile of groceries and hand up in a lazy salute.

Sakura grinned; the supermarket had just gotten a lot more interesting.

"In public without porn?" she joked. "How—"

"Adult literature," he automatically corrected.

She shook her head and peeked into his shopping cart. There was the expected assortment of vegetables, fruits, dairy products, meat… She was, however, surprised to see a few flowers wrapped in clear plastic. She squinted and identified them as sweet peas.

She rose an eyebrow in surprise. "What— or _who _— are those flowers for, Kakashi?"

"Hm?" It took Kakashi a moment to register what she was talking about, but he followed her gaze into the shopping cart and made the connection. "Oh, those… it's just a special someone's special day."

This immediately ignited her interest. "Who, Kakashi?" she pressed. "Whose special day is it? Who's your _special someone_?"

Despite her prodding, his lips were sealed. He just silently pointed to the now open spot at the register in front of her. Sakura grudgingly retired her efforts and addressed the grumpy cashier. He registered her purchase, glaring moodily as her receipt printed. "Have a nice day," he said, sounding as if he wished her quite the opposite.

_Ah, the joys of adolescence… _After paying, she stepped out of the way, glancing back at Kakashi as she left the store; he had fixed the now seething teenager with an infuriating smile as he placed his ridiculous amount of groceries on the sleek black conveyer belt. "Oh, you know, it's my monthly shop," she heard him saying.

She waited for him outside, holding her single plastic bag loosely in her hand and swinging it against her thigh. When he walked out and saw her standing there, his shoulders slumped a little. Instead of offending her, this only made her curiosity burn further. She was struggling to fight it, reminding herself of her little pledge of disinterest, but she couldn't stop the questions popping up in her head. _Who did he buy the flowers for? Does he have a girlfriend? Wouldn't he have told me? Is it someone he thinks I don't like? Is he just pulling my leg?_

She forced herself to maintain her composure while her internal struggle raged on inside her.

"Hey," she said, hoping her cheer didn't sound too forced. "I thought you might want some company."

"Oh, of course," he said sarcastically, rolling his visible eye. "I'm in constant desire of your presence." As he fell into step beside her, she had to remind herself he was being sarcastic.

Sakura watched with mild amusement as he worked to balance his tower of paper bags. "You know, in case you can't _handle _those," she joked, "I could certainly carry some for you."

He straightened his back defiantly, eliciting a laugh from Sakura. Even behind the mask, she could see his grin. She nudged him with her elbow. "What about those flowers, huh? Who are they for?"

She watched the transformation that took place in his face by concentrating on his visible eye. His expression changed from a playful grin to a calm smile; she thought he looked a little sad.

"They're for a special someone on her special day," he repeated.

"Who's the special someone?" she asked, working against frustration. "Have you actually managed to land yourself a girl?"

Kakashi gave a little shake of the head. "It's no one you know," he assured her.

Her heart fell a little. _He has a girlfriend?_ Externally, she appeared as upbeat as ever. "Aha!" she exclaimed. "You just as good as confirmed my suspicions, Kakashi."

He only shook his head again and said, "It's not what you're thinking."

Nudging him once more, Sakura asked, "Who's your sweet pea?"

He blinked. The surprise was fleeting, but Sakura noticed; she knew she hit a nerve.

"Don't act so surprised," she chided. Truthfully, she was a little confused. "You're the one with the sweet pea… The flowers, I mean." He nodded absently. There was silence as they continued to walk.

Once they had reached his building, Kakashi stopped. Sakura followed suit, and he regarded her for a long time. Finally, he said blankly, "You're right… But all parties are a little late."

Leaving her utterly confused, he eye-crinkled, saluted, and promptly disappeared into his building.

Sakura was stunned. On the inside, however, there was a torrent of emotion as her curiosity erupted. She walked calmly a few blocks before she was positive there was no way Kakashi could still see her, at which point she broke into a run.

Questions flew through her head as she headed for Kurenai's house, all self-pledges and sermons about willpower forgotten. All she could focus on was _Kakashi, Kakashi, Kakashi_— his name echoed like a mantra in her head. She could no longer let those opportunities go unexplored; she needed to see the rest of those tapes.

Skidding to a stop in front of Kurenai's building and panting, she experienced a flicker of doubt flitting across her mind. _Am I being too rash? _ She pushed that thought aside— she needed to know, and she needed to know _now_. She ran up the stairs and knocked firmly on the door, holding her breath. The door was opened to reveal Akio, Kurenai's nine-year-old son. Sakura sighed with relief

"Hey," he said lazily, lollipop dangling from his mouth. "Mom's not home."

Sakura mentally cheered. "Could I just borrow a movie?" she asked. "There was something I wanted to watch, and I figured…"

She didn't need to finish. The kid waved her in, stepping out of her way and heading to his own room. Sakura slipped into Kurenai's room and headed straight for the closet, flipping on its light to aid her in her search. She sought the movie box with a passionate eye; she ignored her surroundings completely, not even flinching as the phone rang shrilly. She concentrated solely on her target, experiencing a rush of adrenaline as she found the box. She sifted through the tapes, looking for another labeled 'Kakashi'. She grabbed one at random before hearing approaching footsteps.

By the time Akio entered his mother's room, the closet door was closed and Sakura was on the other side of the room; she appeared to be engrossed in the movie shelf. Unbeknownst to the young boy, the VHS tape Sakura took from the closet was stowed safely in her shopping bag.

"Mom wanted to talk to you," he said; she looked up, and he handed her the phone.

"Oh, thanks." Sakura took the phone from him. "Hey, Kurenai," she said cheerfully.

"Hey!" Kurenai sounded pretty upbeat. "I'm calling from the supermarket— I just wanted to ask Akitchan what sort of cereal he wanted, he's so picky… Anyway, I wanted to thank you for helping me out with the apartment— it had been a complete disaster." She took a breath. "What movie did you want to borrow?"

Without even thinking, Sakura said the first thing that came to mind; the words just slipped out.

"Icha Icha Violence."

Silence.

Static erupted as Kurenai sighed heavily. "Kakashi is definitely starting to rub off on you." Sakura could only laugh shakily.

Kurenai sighed again. "My library, while admittedly extensive, does not carry that particular title."

"Sorry," Sakura said hurriedly. "Bye, Kurenai."

"Good-bye, Sakura," Kurenai said wearily before hanging up. Sakura handed the phone back to Akio, who was wearing a smirk Sakura didn't much care for.

"Sorry for bothering you," she said. He shook his head, and she left. On the way home, she kept up a brisk pace, eager to watch the tape.

Despite her intentions, she could not watch the tape right away. When she got home, Ino was waiting for her, harboring a burning desire to gossip. Sakura obliged, but she was distracted the entire time and pretty disengaged with the conversation. Unfortunately, this only made Ino keep her longer to try to squeeze some conversation out of her. Finally, she realized that Sakura was not going to budge and that it wasn't getting any earlier, so she left in a huff.

Content at last, Sakura curled up on her chair with popcorn. She thought she might as well enjoy something she thought she certainly deserved; how could she not be curious with Kakashi out buying flowers for a girl and keeping secrets? Her heart thumping, she pressed 'play'.

She was surprised when the tape did not seem to possess its usual home-movie feel. There was black right away before a date, real time, and a number appeared on the bottom right corner of the screen. The black was replaced by a fixed shot of a hospital room. Sakura recognized the number as a room number at Konoha's own hospital. The date was some twenty-one years earlier at about 3:50 in the afternoon.

A brown-haired girl was lying on the solitary bed, attached to a few machines. She appeared to be unconscious. The camera was at an angle; Sakura presumed it to be in a corner of the room as usual. She was more than a little confused; what sort of tape was this?

Before she had a chance to assess the on-screen situation, someone tore into the hospital room. Sakura could hear the door bang against the wall and crash shut as a teenage Kakashi ran into the room. He stopped abruptly at the edge of the bed, swaying at the sudden interference with inertia. He was panting, clad in full ANBU uniform sans porcelain mask, which had clattered to the floor at his feet. He stood frozen for a few seconds before collapsing into a chair beside the girl's bed and putting his head in his hands.

There was silence except for the beeping of the machines. Kakashi was shaking.

The girl's hand moved, and her eyelids fluttered. Kakashi snapped his head up. His voice hoarse, he croaked, "Rin?"

Rin did not respond for a moment before weakly trying to smile. "Kakashi," she rasped.

Kakashi inched closer to her, scraping the chair legs on the floor. "Rin—" His voice faltered as she began to cough. He hovered beside her in silence until the coughs subsided. He seemed to twitch as she moaned; she was in obvious pain. "Kashi…" she whispered. "So much… I'm hurting…"

When Kakashi spoke, his voice was much higher than usual. Sakura wasn't sure if it was just because he was younger, but regardless, he sounded very frightened. "What… what happened?" he asked tentatively.

Rin only whimpered. There was a pause before, sounding very scared, she said, "He…" She shuddered, but she did not continue. Impulsively, it seemed, Kakashi reached out a hand to take hers. More whimpers escaped Rin, followed by some inconclusive attempts at speech. After a few long moments, she began to cry. This must have made her whole body ache with pain; regardless, it sent the monitor beeping more incessantly.

Kakashi pressed himself against the side of the bed, pushing himself as close as possible while still sitting on the chair. He started rubbing her hand soothingly. "Everything will be all right," he whispered shakily; Sakura was surprised the camera could pick it up. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you anymore."

Rin had already quieted, her eyes closed again. Sakura could tell she was on the brink of death. Kakashi's talking had stopped, but he kept rubbing her hand.

Rin started to mumble; most was incoherent, but Sakura could make out the word "winter". Kakashi laughed, sounding a little hysterical. He squeezed her hand. "You're talking nonsense, Rin." He tried to push some hair lovingly from her face, but his hands were shaking too hard. "It's spring, Rin," he whispered. "It's your favorite season." His words were met only with the beeping of the machine. It was slowing down, but it seemed that Kakashi was oblivious. He kept talking, whispering sweet nothings to the dying girl in front of him.

"Almost all the s-snow has melted, R-Rin," he said, nodding at the window across from him. "Puddles… there'll be lots of them… remember how Obito used to splash in them? He would get us all wet, and Sensei would just laugh… Just look outside the window, Rin, j-just open your eyes and l-look out the window… Look, Rin…"

He squeezed her hand so hard Sakura thought it might break. He failed to register that the heart monitor had gone blank.

"Can't you see the birds?"

The tape cut to black, and then to static.

_Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God._

Sakura was completely still, her mouth frozen open in shock. Her bowl of popcorn remained untouched. Her mind was reeling— she _could not believe _what she had just seen. For several long moments, she could not even move, staring numbly at the crackling static on the screen.

_Oh my God… I just watched Rin _die_._

After her initial shock subsided, she was staggeringly overwhelmed by a wave of guilt. She felt sickened with herself for actually being _excited_ to see this; she almost threw up over the popcorn she had so naively taken out. She hated herself for giving into the temptation to watch the movie in the first place. _I should have seen this coming, _she berated herself. _I heard him say that they ended badly; I should have known something bad was going to happen._ She felt her lip trembling as she thought about how she had pressed Kakashi for information on Rin; no wonder he had been so reluctant. She fought the image of Kakashi the teenager babbling to a corpse and shakily stood up. She made her way to the bathroom, where she splashed her face with cold water.

The water seemed to shock something out of her. _Hey_, she reminded herself, _I shouldn't be feeling half this guilty. _She had no way of knowing that after the first two harmless home movies, this one would be a depressing hospital tape. It certainly didn't fit the pattern; how the hell did this get mixed in with Asuma's good-natured amateur videos? Additionally, she had, if not every right, at least some right to be curious about Rin. It was perfectly normal to ask about a friend's old friends or lovers; lack of curiosity would have been strange. Besides, it wasn't as if she was aware of the situation. Aside from a vague comment from Kakashi, she hadn't even the faintest inkling that the nature of this tape would be anything but benign. Looking at herself in the mirror, she nodded at her determined reflection.

She listened to the static in the background as she analyzed her own appearance. She scowled at the red and puffy eyes; they brought her mind back to the hysterical Kakashi. Her eyes started to water again as she contemplated what he must have gone through. Watching his girlfriend and last remaining teammate die while he was utterly helpless must have taken an immense toll on him. She felt a rush of sympathy for him, and was overcome by the urge to give him a warm squeeze. She stared at the mirror awhile longer without actually seeing it. _Poor Kakashi…_ She heaved an almighty sniffle before rubbing her eyes and brushing her teeth. She slipped into her bed, about as subdued as possible. She lay awake for a long time before finally falling into restless sleep.

(…)

_Sakura listened to the soothing sound of waves crashing gently against the shore as she walked along a moonlit beach. It was midnight, and the stars flashed friendly twinkles her way. She turned to see a person walking next to her; Kakashi gave her a cheerful smile. "Hello, Sakura." His deep voice rumbled pleasantly from within his chest._

"_Hey." She smiled happily at him, and they fell into a comfortable silence as they continued their stroll down the beach. Warmth radiated from his tall figure, and his silver hair sparkled in the starlight._

_The flapping of birds' wings came from overhead. Both of them looked up, watching them fly across the sky. Suddenly, the deep indigo of the sky congealed into an ugly red. She heard Kakashi start to laugh beside her. Frightened, she turned to him, but he was no longer the calm adult she knew. He had shed twenty years and was now a teenager, wearing an ANBU uniform splattered with blood. The contrast was sickening; the sky, she now noticed, was the same color as the fresh blood decorating his white vest. He was still staring at the sky, his entire body shaking as he laughed. He turned to face her, and she saw that he was crying._

_She reached out a hand to comfort him, but she could not muster the energy to lift it. As she struggled to move, she found her entire body too weak and was suddenly trapped, immobile, in a hospital bed._

_The bright white of the room's walls was a painful change from the red of the sky. Her eyes had a hard time adjusting, adding to the frustration she was experiencing with her own body. She realized after a few seconds that Kakashi was at her side; they were staring straight at each other. He was shaking violently— far more than a human is normally capable of— so hard that his entire image was shimmering. Flickers of the Kakashi she knew broke through the hysterical teenager standing before her; he would occasionally be taller, or wearing his forehead protector over his Sharingan. For the most part, though, the younger Kakashi was stronger and blocked out any visual leaks of his future self._

_Kakashi reached out a hand to grab hers, which dragged his indecisive form into painful clarity. Sakura's eyes rolled back into her head, and she saw those black birds juxtaposed against the blood red sky. She could hear Kakashi asking her if she could see the birds, again and again, repeating the question at increasingly higher pitches. The words grew indistinguishable from each other as they became the shrill screeching of the birds. This shrieking twisted into a familiar chirping, accompanied by crackling blue lightning. It plunged straight into her chest, but she could not feel it. She could only feel her body racking with gut-wrenching sobs, driving the blood out of her as the Raikiri pierced her heart._

Sakura awoke, thrashing and sobbing. She was completely entangled in her blankets and drenched in a cold sweat. Shaking, she tried to calm her ragged breathing. She sat up, freezing cold and hugging her knees to her chest. After she had relaxed a little, she went to the bathroom and rinsed off in the shower. The water felt like ice against her skin, but she barely registered it. She was too focused on trying to shake the images from her head.

When she finished, she walked back to her room and crawled back into bed, lying down and watching the sky start to lighten outside her window. It was dawn, and she was caught in the frustrating limbo between being too tired to move but not tired enough to sleep. After a while, she accepted that she was not going to get any more sleep. Truthfully, she was a little afraid of going back to sleep; she did not want to have another dream like that. She decided that the best think to do would be to satisfy her sudden urge for fresh air— anything to get away from her bedroom, which felt like a dungeon. She pulled on some clothes and wrapped her coat around her before leaving.

She started walking outside, hugging herself in the early-morning chill. Although she made a few attempts to avoid it, her mind inevitably came to settle on Rin. She began running over everything she knew about the girl, as if bare facts could somehow disguise the cold gripping at her heart.

_Kurumi Rin, a medic and shinobi of Konoha_, she thought mechanically. _Brown hair, brown eyes, distinguishing purple markings on either cheek. Date of birth, November fifteenth… _November fifteenth. _Wait…_

_Isn't that today?_

A jolt of understanding pierced her forced monotony.

"_What — or _who _— are those flowers for, Kakashi?"_

"_Hm? Oh, those… It's just a special someone's special day."_

She contained a groan of frustration. _HOW could I not have noticed that?_

As she mulled over this newfound connection, her feet were unconsciously leading her to the Memorial Stone. Caught up in her contemplation, she did not register her location until she was standing behind a familiar patch of trees. Kakashi sat in front of the monument, clearly visible to her, and she realized where she was.

She felt a tug at her heart and a swoop of the stomach that ended in a lurch. She watched him curiously; she had no idea what he was doing. _Doesn't he normally stand? Maybe he just got tired._

Without really thinking, she approached him. He looked over his shoulder in surprise. Rather than his usual jounin uniform, he was wearing his funeral clothing. Sakura stopped next to him, and she saw that he had been eating. She realized with a start that his mask was down.

In spite of the circumstances and her present state of mind, she couldn't help but observe him. He was handsome, lacking any disfigurements except for the scar across his closed left eye. His nose was straight, and his cheekbones high. She had always wondered if perhaps his droopy eye would be a turn-off, but he somehow managed to pull it off beautifully. A piece of her was ecstatic at finally being exposed to his entire face, but she did not feel as triumphant or enthusiastic as she had always expected. Instead, she felt a pang in her heart; her chest ached as he smiled at her. For the first time, she could see more than just a crinkling eye, but his mouth was a much poorer mask than the one he usually wore. Evident behind the forced cheer was a subtle but deep level of hurt.

"Don't worry," he assured her. "Staring and blushing is a common first reaction to seeing my face, although I'm a little concerned about the frown."

In spite of herself, Sakura gave him a wry smile. "What are you doing?"

"Eating breakfast," he said matter-of-factly, as if it were a completely normal thing to be doing at this time and place. She shook her head and sat down beside him. She turned to face the Stone, noticing the flowers from the day before.

"Happy birthday," she murmured. She felt Kakashi's gaze move to her, but she stared hard at the flower. She noticed that there was a little card attached.

_Happy, birthday, Rin-chan!_

_-Kakashi__  
_

Possessed by a sudden flood of emotion, Sakura gave no warning as she turned to kiss him.

Kakashi showed minimal hesitation before responding passionately. It lasted for what felt to Sakura for forever, and when they stopped, he gave her another, more tender kiss. His lips lingered on hers; she could taste his breakfast on his breath. When they pulled apart, he still had his hand cupped around her chin, and one of her hands was entwined in the hair on the back of his neck. His eyes were swimming with emotion. Sakura tried her best to decipher his expression, although it wasn't too hard to figure out what he was thinking. She could tell by the way he was looking at her that this wasn't the first time he had thought romantically of her; she thought he might have been grappling with feelings for her for a little while now, but no more than a few months. It would explain why he had reciprocated; otherwise, he would have tried to stop her. There was conflict in his eyes, though, and she understood that she _was _fourteen years his junior… She, however, was pretty much beyond caring about that, and she hoped that the indecision playing across both his half-lidded eyes would lean her way. Something eventually clicked in his eyes, and she thought that, for now, at least, he was convinced that his affections were not misplaced. (It was an awful lot of conjecture on Sakura's part, of course, but she felt more connected to him than she ever had, and a face was much easier to read than one black eye.)

Looking at him and seeing the tenderness of his gaze, Sakura was once again overwhelmed by sympathy and what she finally admitted to be attraction. Her lip trembled, and she pulled him into a hug.

He returned it, rubbing her back soothingly. She all but melted in the warmth of his arms; for the first time since she woke up, she felt the cold dissipate. She gave him a final squeeze before pulling back and wiping her eyes. She gave a nervous laugh. "I probably look like a wreck."

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't particularly care."

She smiled to herself before hungrily eyeing his breakfast.

"Oh, gosh, I'm _so _hungry," she groaned. As if on cue, her stomach grumbled in agreement. She let out an exaggerated sigh. "If only there was a nice big breakfast sitting _just _within my reach, and a kind gentleman willing to offer some to me…"

She threw Kakashi a mischievous sideways glance, catching his half-smile. "You don't want this stuff," he said, gesturing at his food. "It's all half-eaten. Perhaps you'd be interested in dinner instead?"

Sakura's heart swelled at this smooth invitation. Trying to hide her grin, she scooped up some of his food anyway. Stuffing it into her mouth, she said, "I'm hungry now." However, her chews were thoughtful, and she considered his offer before swallowing.

"But dinner sounds good, too."


	5. Four: Dreams

Any information regarding Japanese cuisine was gathered from Google searches and Wikipedia. Please feel free to point out anything I got wrong. Also don't hesitate to bring mistakes of other natures to my attention. I hope you enjoy this next chapter of my story.

* * *

Sakura stood in front of her mirror, applying the last of her make-up. Her right foot was tapping the carpet impatiently as she puckered her lips, drawing the lipstick tube across them. An owl outside hooted loudly. Yelping, she jumped, the silver tube clattering to the ground.

"Nerves," she muttered, bending to pick it up. She observed her face in the mirror, assessing it for damages. Thankfully, her make-up had not smeared, which she took as a divine blessing.

She was certainly nervous— this was, after all, a date with _Kakashi. _The three syllables of his name sent shivers down her spine; something about the upcoming outing seemed almost _surreal. _Her heart was beating a tattoo against her chest as her eyes darted surreptitiously towards the clock.

Trying to distract herself, she squinted at the mascara. She popped off the cap and raised it to her eyes, deliberately clamping her lips shut as she tried to put it on. She had once been told that this was impossible; after only a few seconds of trying, that seemed to be the case. Her hand was shaking too much; it slipped, messing up the delicate application.

Sakura swore under her breath, hurrying to fix it. She was soon interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Dammit!" She had spent so long picking out her outfit and fussing with her hair that she was left scrambling to finish her make-up. After a few last-minute flourishes, she patted her cheek approvingly. She looked herself up and down in the mirror, scrutinizing her outfit for the umpteenth time. She was wearing an emerald V-neck, complete with a matching green purse. Her jean skirt was short, but she wore black leggings underneath. Satisfied, she turned the light off. "Come in," she called. "The door's unlocked."

Kakashi entered as she walked out of the bathroom. She noticed right away that instead of curved in a slouch his back was straight. This was a clear sign that he was nervous, too, which calmed her down considerably. He gave her a smile through his mask, which she returned. Almost simultaneously, they let their eyes drop to observe each other's outfits. Sakura was glad she had decided to dress casually; Kakashi was wearing a dark blue turtleneck and dark jeans. _The world will end the day Hatake Kakashi wears anything cheery, _she thought wryly.

Instead of smiling, as was her inclination, she pouted. "Take your mask off."

For a second, he grew tense; however, she thought it must merely be a gut reaction because he relaxed moments later. His Sharingan was uncovered, so the smile he gave her sent both of his eyes into that frustrating crinkle. "Only if you ask nicely."

Inner Sakura smirked at the banter, but outer Sakura sighed sadly. "If that's the case," she said, "I _might _just have to reconsider." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You know, Genma made a very enticing, _full face_ offer…"

Kakashi put his hands up in defeat and pulled his mask down. Sakura couldn't help but grin broadly. He gave her a small, rather sheepish smile in return, and she had to contain a very girly squeal. As they moved to put on their coats, she kept glancing at his face in glee. He finally gave her a questioning look (she loved his tiny frown), and she planted herself squarely in front of him, hands on her hips.

"You," she said, "have the most adorable dimples."

Her delight only increased as he blushed, coloring his cheeks pink. She smirked and held out an arm. He regarded it bemusedly, looking unwilling to accept its implications. Undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, she wiggled her elbow at him. At this blatant suggestion, he raised his eyebrows.

"Sakura," he objected, "I don't think that's really…"

Cutting him off loudly, Sakura remarked, "Oh, Kakashi, it would be so _awful_ if I were to _slip _and _fall_…" Kakashi sighed and shook his head before taking her arm and steering her out of the apartment, flipping off the lights and closing the door behind them.

Outside, it was very chilly. Tempting as taking advantage of Kakashi's body heat was, Sakura stubbornly did not cling to him. She did not look at the faces of people as they passed, instead focusing on the road ahead of them, but she wondered if Kakashi felt at all awkward walking so boldly with her. Surely, she figured, he couldn't be completely oblivious to the gaping civilians, who were stunned by both his unmasked face and the woman on his arm. _It seems a little out of character for him,_ she mused. _Of course, I've never seen him in this sort of situation, but still…_

Her doubts were met with a gentle humming. In all her time knowing Kakashi, she had never once heard him hum; she wasn't aware he had any musical inclination. With a small smile, she decided that he couldn't be _that _bothered.

(…)

"Okay then… how about _gyoza_?"

"Try again."

"Grr, you're so difficult… _yakitori_?"

Kakashi shook his head.

"Even without the _tare _sauce?"

Again, Sakura's offer was dismissed. She glared at him from over her menu as he patted his pocket meaningfully. "I'm not made of money, you know," he reminded her.

She made a disgruntled noise. "Cheap," she murmured. "You're being infuriatingly and unnecessarily _cheap_. I mean, you get paid _ridiculous _amounts of money for those solo missions…"

"May I remind you that I _am _paying for your meal?" He shook his head in mock disappointment. "Really, Sakura, show a little more…"

Sakura ignored him, instead turning to the waiter hovering beside her. "_Tora-fugu_, please," she said demurely. She threw a sideways glance Kakashi's way in time to catch his pout before his face smoothed over. Having regained his composure, he observed the waiter blankly as the man rattled off the day's specials. Sakura noticed he tried not to make a face at the mention of the "Tempura of the Week"; this brought about an unpleasant series of images for Sakura. She worked to fight the array of images that had been plaguing her since she saw the most recent tape— a collage of the tape's depictions of Rin, whom Sakura had been trying her hardest not to think about since that morning. After taking a calming breath, she coolly pushed the images aside. _I'm not going to let _them _get in the way of my date,_ she told herself, determined.

Kakashi ordered the cheapest item available, and the waiter collected their menus. Kakashi crossed his arms across his chest as Sakura smiled coyly at him.

"_Fugu_?" He gave her a mourning look. "Was it necessary to pick the most _expensive _food on the menu?"

"I told you," Sakura countered, "you get paid tons of money, yet you still pinch your pennies like an old lady." She took satisfaction in that he looked thoroughly ruffled at this comparison. She could see a playful contempt brewing in his eyes. She smirked.

"I know what you're thinking," she said, in full awareness of her lie. "You're hoping that chef isn't as skilled as he pretends to be and that I'll learn my lesson via poisonous _fugu _fish."

Kakashi chuckled in amusement; Sakura couldn't recall ever hearing a more pleasant sound. "Of course I'm not," he chided gently. "Really, Sakura, must you always think the worst of me?"

Their banter continued as their dinners came and they ate. Sakura found that she actually didn't much like _fugu_ and ended up taking more than her share of Kakashi's meal. He didn't overly object, instead finding apparent amusement in her less-than-stealthy attempts to sneak a bite. His plate was clean very quickly, and the waiter was good at hiding his frown when he took away the meticulously prepared meal she had barely touched. She figured he had little tolerance for people who squandered good food, but she thought he shouldn't be one to complain because she had also squandered good money. He offered them dessert with as little contempt in his voice as possible; Sakura felt they had reached a silent impasse.

Throughout the dinner, Sakura was working to remain her old self. It was hard not to treat Kakashi differently after seeing him in the hospital tape; there were times when she wanted to offer her sympathies and give him a hug. However, such an action would hardly be appropriate, so Sakura did her best to keep the movies out of her mind.

Under the guise of scanning her dessert menu, Sakura peered at Kakashi over the top of it. She couldn't seem to keep her eyes off him; she felt a little silly, swooning over him like a schoolgirl, but his movements intoxicated her. Even though he was doing nothing but regarding the menu with a bored resignation, she could not tear her eyes from him. Her heart skipped a beat as his face lit up; there was just something about seeing his face, his whole _face_, so pleased with something.

"What are you so excited about?" she asked, raising her eyebrow at him. "I thought you didn't like sweets."

"Usually I don't," he replied, "but today is a special occasion."

This was an uncomfortably familiar sentiment. "What are you getting?" she asked.

His gaze lingered on her— its intensity sent shivers down her spine. Without answering her, he turned to a passing waiter. "I'll have half a dozen chocolate-covered cherries, please," he said curtly.

"Me too," Sakura quickly chimed in. This earned her an eyebrow-raise from Kakashi once the waiter had left. She just smiled and reminded him, "It's a special occasion."

His expression did not really change; she wondered if he suspected her of mocking him. She wasn't, but it seemed from his slightly wary stare that he thought that. Both were silent until the waiter brought the cherries, at which point Kakashi leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, watching Sakura with an air of suspicion.

Sakura popped a cherry into her mouth and looked up at him innocently. His mouth twitched at her expression (she wondered if cuteness was a secret weakness of his) before his countenance reverted to wary.

The cherries were scrumptious, and Sakura took her time finishing it. After she had carefully removed the pit and placed it on her small plate, she feigned ignorance. "What?"

He was quiet for a little while before leaning forward, arms still crossed and cherries untouched. "Do you know what today is?" The question was not innocent; it carried a heaviness to it. Its answer would imply much more than a simple 'yes' or 'no'. She could tell that he was aware that she knew more than she was letting on— he was just seeing how much she would reveal.

She considered her answer over another cherry before speaking in what she hoped did not appear to be an overly cautious manner. "It's Rin's birthday… your old teammate and friend." She thought it would be unwise to let him know she knew anymore.

He considered his response for a long time. Finally, he spoke sincerely.

"But it's our night, right? Not Rin's?"

Sakura tried not to show her surprise. "Of course," she said, smiling. A pause followed; Sakura felt a little uneasy. She wasn't sure what Kakashi was worried about, and she didn't want to upset him. Still, she could not help but give at least _some _acknowledgement to the girl whose dying image she just couldn't get out of her head. "But can we maybe make a toast to her anyway?"

It was Kakashi's turn to look surprised, but he recovered with a smile. He raised his glass. Sakura followed suit, and they both murmured, "To Rin" and clinked their glasses together, taking a sip of sake. Neither lowered their glasses, instead watching the other over the glass rim. Each wore a smile, albeit a cautious one. Kakashi broke the strange moment by setting his glass down and eagerly starting to eat his chocolate-covered cherries. Sakura also resumed eating, finishing her cherries quickly. She watched with amusement as Kakashi slowly worked his way through the six cherries.

He glanced upward, noticing her look. "I just like to savor them," he explained, a little defensive. "I hardly ever eat sugary things, so the cherries are… almost unbearably sweet."

She laughed. "Why do you even eat them, then?" she teased.

He gave her a soft smile. "It's _almost _unbearable."

She shook her head and excused herself to the ladies' room. When she returned, he had finished his cherries. The money was down on the table, and Kakashi was buttoning up his coat. Something about this struck Sakura as terribly attractive, but she pushed the thought aside, slipping her own coat on. When they were both bundled up, they stepped outside together and started walking.

She noticed that Kakashi was straightening his scarf. He was frowning as he fiddled with it, trying to fix it so that it covered the lower half of his face. Sakura pouted, tugging at the scarf. "I don't want you to cover it up."

They stopped walking, standing almost a foot apart. At first he seemed unyielding, so she continued to press him. He interrupted her protests by pulling the scarf down and leaning forward to kiss her. She was surprised but wasted little time adapting. His hand was cupped lovingly around her chin, caressing it softly as he gave her a heartfelt kiss. No other parts of them were touching.

He pulled his lips away gently. His eyes were a little glazed over, but his smile was not suggestive. He seemed reluctant to let his hand fall from her chin.

Sakura blinked before realizing that she was smiling and blushing. Naturally, this only caused her grin to widen and her blush to deepen. This seemed to snap Kakashi out of his romantic reverie; he blinked, looking surprised with himself and almost a little embarrassed. Familiar affection rushed through Sakura, accompanied by a pang of sadness. It was a little disheartening to see uncertainty flicker across his eye, but she acknowledged that this could take him a little while to get used to. Smiling, she tilted her head to the side a little. He smiled back, encouraged, and she linked hands with him. If he was uncomfortable with the contact, he took it in stride as they walked together.

When they reached the place where their paths would normally diverge, he stopped. Oblivious, she continued to walk until their hands disconnected and fell. She watched him curiously; he seemed to be deliberating something. After a few moments, he turned to her and smiled— not an eye-crinkle, but a real, fond smile — and offered his hand to her.

"Walk you home?"

Sakura accepted with a smile and took his hand in hers.

(…)

They stood in silence outside her apartment building. He seemed unperturbed by it, but Sakura felt uneasy. Her hand squirmed in his. "Kakashi?"

He turned to her. "Hm?"

Sakura relinquished her grip on his hand. Fidgeting with the hem of her coat, she said, "I'm really glad we did this." Getting the words out emboldened her a little, so she looked up at him and said with a smile, "I look forward to your next dinner invitation."

He smiled. "Thank you." His words were simple, but they soothed her anxiety.

More silence followed. Kakashi finally broke it with a sigh. "I'd better get going," he said wearily. Sakura nodded. "Good night, Sakura."

Something seemed incomplete to Sakura. _Just a good night? I don't think so._ In a spur of the moment, she stood on her tiptoes and pecked him on the mouth. She pulled away and hurried inside, but not before flashing a sly smile his way.

"Good night, Kakashi."

(…)

By the time the eighteenth came around, Kakashi had taken Sakura on one more date. He had paid again, and Sakura had been kind enough to order a moderately priced meal for his sake. They had parted again with a kiss, but so far, nothing more. Sakura was happy with the rate of their progression; she found no good in rushing things.

Despite her content with the status quo, Sakura found no harm in daydreaming. It was afternoon at the hospital, and Sakura sat at her desk going through paperwork. She hummed idly to herself, drumming her fingers on the desk.

_Yes, _she thought with a smile, _Kakashi is _definitely _more interesting than paperwork._

"Finally get laid, forehead?" A drawling voice came from a blonde woman leaning against the door frame.

Sakura did not look up. "Hello, Ino," she said coolly.

Ino smirked. "So did you get laid? You're positively glowing."

Sakura rolled her eyes. _Leave it to Ino to get sex and pregnancy mixed up._ "Unlike you," she said, "I don't depend on sex for happiness."

Ignoring the comment, Ino sat down on the chair in front of Sakura's desk. "What are you so happy about, then?"

"It's none of your business," Sakura sang. She was not pleased that Ino had interrupted her pleasant fantasy.

"Yeah right," Ino scoffed. "Your business is my business." She ignored Sakura's snort of dissent. "Anyway, there's a rumor going around that you were seen walking _arm in arm_ with a certain silver-haired jounin the other night."

_Damn, _Sakura privately cursed. She and Kakashi had not gotten around to discussing their relationship. It seemed to her that by the end of the second date, he had accepted romantic involvement as the only logical course of action for them. She did not, however, know how comfortable he was with the idea of 'going public'. Of course, she found no problem with it; she sometimes wanted to scream to the entire world that she was with him. Kakashi, though, was a man of many reservations. He probably wasn't outright opposed to the idea, but she wanted to consult with him before divulging potentially delicate information to the biggest gossip in the village. She was therefore reluctant to say too much.

She stood, straightening her papers out. "You shouldn't pay so much attention to what you pick up on the street."

Crossing her arms, Ino also rose to her feet. She spoke in an almost threatening tone. "All rumors have a basis in truth."

"Or a pub patron who's had one too many."

Ino waved Sakura's comment aside. "Never mind that," she said. "You won't _believe _what Chouji did when Shikamaru and I had him over. It started out innocently enough, you know, we had just ordered some takeout…"

Glad for the change of subject, Sakura tried to listen, but her mind wandered. She started thinking about Ino's assumption that she had had sex. This, of course, brought her to the concept of sex with Kakashi. She knew it had to happen eventually, and frankly, she was looking forward to it. She found little fault with this; they were adults, so it followed that they would do what adults did. She smiled a little; he was certainly well muscled…

Her daydream broke when Ino snapped her fingers in front of Sakura's very warm face. Sakura blinked, dazed; Ino looked confused and unamused. "What is so _arousing _about Chouji puking his guts out all over the new couch?"

"Aroused?" Sakura laughed off the accusation. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

Ino shrugged. "One minute you were all business, and the next you were blushing like crazy and had a faraway look in your eyes." Her tone was airy, but a devious grin flashed Sakura's way betrayed her wistful façade. Sakura managed to dismiss this point with an eye-roll. "Get lost, Ino," she said. "I have work to do."

"Later, forehead." She shrugged and left. Sakura just shook her head and sat back down. She tried to get back to her work, but she found herself having a hard time. Ino's remark had not left her, and she couldn't seem to push images of Kakashi doing improper things to her out of her mind. Surrendering to her increasingly erotic daydream, she leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and sighed.

"_Sakura… Sakura…"_

She thought it was just a part of her fantasy when she heard his voice, low and sultry. She moaned his name— lazily at first, and then with mounting urgency. After a particularly emphatic "Kakashi!" there was a pause. And then a very shocked voice.

"Um… Sakura?"

Her eyes snapped open. She saw a very bemused Kakashi standing in front of her desk, clad surprisingly in ANBU gear. _Oh gosh, I just… wait, is he blushing? Grr, it's so hard to tell with that damn mask…! _

Wondering just what the hell was wrong with her today, she fought to regain her composure. "W-what are you doing here?" she asked.

He blinked; he seemed to be over his surprise. "I have a mission to do." He shifted uncomfortably at the look she gave him— she was clearly demanding an explanation for the unusual attire. "I've been asked to temporarily fill in for an injured member of a squad that was scheduled to go out today," he explained.

She nodded; she had neither the right nor the desire to object. "When are you supposed to be back?"

A shrug. "It should only be a few days… a week at most." Again, she nodded. They both understood that he could provide no further details.

There was a short period of silence. He raised a hand to perform his funny little wave-salute, and she could tell he was about to say good-bye. Gripped by a sudden question, she interrupted him.

"Kakashi?"

He smoothly changed his hand's direction to run through his hair. "Hm?"

Looking down, she fidgeted with her papers a little. He cocked his head to the side. "Everything all right?"

She hesitated before looking up at him. "What do you think about other people knowing about our relationship?" She wouldn't ask him what he thought of the relationship itself; they were too close for that.

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't particularly care what other people think," he said. He seemed to sense what she was aiming for because he added, "And I certainly don't feel that I have anything to be ashamed about." She sought a little more confirmation, which he picked up through her eyes. He smiled reassuringly at her. "I worry too much about you to have room to worry about other people's opinions."

Inwardly, Sakura felt touched. In order to take control of the situation, however, she shook her head. "To be honest," she said, "I'm disappointed in your lack of originality. I mean, with your genius, I was expecting a bit more creative response."

His shoulders slumped.

"It was supposed to sound dashing and romantic," he pouted.

She shook her head again. "More like sappy and a little cliché."

He winced.

"Harsh."

She only smiled, sticking her tongue out.

He shook his head in dismissal of the taunt. They both leaned forward — she up, he down — and kissed each other on the lips. He gave her a cheery wave-salute (_He did it anyway_, she mused) and disappeared in a poof of smoke.

Sakura shook her head softly, smiling warmly (and a little dreamily) at the space where he had just stood. Sighing, she returned to her work. She found, however, that his visit left her even more distracted than before. As hard as she tried to concentrate on the medical reports she was supposed to be reviewing, her mind kept inevitably wandering back to him and the way she felt when he kissed her. Their first kiss was a particularly pleasant memory, but it brought her thoughts to Rin.

She frowned a little at the papers in front of her. _Rin's death really is a mystery…_ she thought. _I mean, that tape didn't really… _She gulped as the images from the hospital tape surfaced. Her frown deepened; that was hardly something to be thinking about.

Seemingly out of nowhere, another thought crossed her mind. _How far did Rin in Kakashi get?_ She started wondering what would have happened if Rin had not died her enigmatic death. _Would they have stayed together? I think he was pretty devoted to her… Would they have actually gotten _married_? Had _kids? Although at first the thought was pleasant — surely, Kakashi would be happier — but she couldn't help but feel put out that her relationship with Kakashi would probably have never happened. In spite of herself and her pity for Rin, she began to feel a little hypothetical jealousy. _If Rin hadn't died, I…_

Her brooding was abruptly interrupted by the image of the dying Rin, rendered in painful clarity, broke through. She quickly killed that train of thought, feeling an unpleasant twist in her stomach when she realized that she was wishing ill on a girl who had died at such a horrible time and had done Sakura no wrong.

After that, Sakura focused on her paperwork and did not dwell on Rin or Kakashi. The incident of jealousy left a sour taste in her mouth, and she was glad to be called to do some physical work to distract her from those thoughts.

(…)

That evening, Sakura entered her apartment lethargically, exhausted both physically and mentally. She dropped her things on the floor by the door and went to take a shower. Standing underneath the warm spray of water, her thoughts drifted to Kakashi for the first time since early that afternoon. She fantasized about him half-heartedly for a little while, but her mind was more preoccupied with Rin; now that she had been stripped of the distraction of work, her mind kept circling around Rin's death and her relationship to Kakashi.

She laughed hollowly to herself. _Why am I putting so much effort into contemplating unanswered questions about a girl who's been dead for over twenty years?_

Another side of her spoke up in argument. _Rin was clearly important to Kakashi, _it defended. _To better understand him — because he _is _your boyfriend now, after all — you must understand at least a little more about Rin._

The shower hissed as Sakura turned it off. She dried off and got into her pajamas. She made her way automatically to the couch, settling into the cushions and unconsciously looking longingly at the door. After a few moments, she blinked and realized that she was half-expecting (half-hoping) Kakashi to knock on her door and come in, asking her what's for dinner. She shook her head. _Am I becoming dependent on his company or something? _she wondered wryly. Her dismissal of this thought cheered her up a little.

Despite her change of mood, however, she found her eyes wandering to her bedroom door. It stood ajar, and she knew that beyond it was the closet where the tapes were being kept. Almost automatically, she stood and went swiftly to her room. She reached for the hospital tape, but instead moved her head down to the other. She decided to grab both for the sake of easier access. Returning to the living room, she placed the hospital tape in the cabinet beneath the television and pushed the other tape into the VCR and sat slowly back down on the couch. She was too tense to be comfortable.

_Play. _The tape started from where she had stopped it last, right after Asuma was done with his mock narrative of Kakashi's life.

"Hmm… to press or not to press, that is the question…"

With a hawk-like vigilance she followed Asuma's progression through Kakashi's building, leaning forward as he pushed the door open. She watched with wide eyes, trying to drink in everything as Kakashi and Rin (whom she now definitely recognized) were interrupted in their moment of passion. Although the shaking of the camera made it hard to pick out details, Sakura noticed that they had definitely been tugging at each other's clothes. The second time around, she was more aware of how red Kakashi's face was and that his hair and clothes were definitely disheveled. She now saw for certain that the Rin in the background was pulling her shirt over her head. Her eyes jumped between Kakashi and Rin as Asuma offered a hurried explanation.

The scene came to an abrupt stop; Kakashi had shut the camera off. She waited as the static occupied the screen before shifting towards the second movie. She couldn't help but laugh a little at Gai's antics at the beginning, and she felt a swooping sensation in her stomach when the camera switched to Kakashi. His hair and mask hadn't changed much since he was seventeen, but she could see that he was much younger. It was exhilarating, she thought, seeing him that young. She could clearly remember being seventeen, but it was strange to think of Kakashi as that young. Despite his aloof manner, there was a hint of innocence in the adolescent Kakashi's eyes that had long since faded.

She felt a flash of worry when he talked about disregard for his own body, wondering fleetingly if he still felt that way. The more rational part of her mind fought off this concern. _All teens feel invulnerable that way,_ it reasoned. _Just look at _your_ friends— seventeen wasn't that long ago._

The tape ended with Gai's outburst, and Sakura giggled a little at the mortification in Kakashi's eyes. She remembered how she had asked Kakashi the same question (_"Boxers or briefs?"_) and smiled.

She sighed quietly before putting the tape in the TV cabinet. Feeling very weary, she went to bed, allowing herself to be only a little worried about why she acted like an addict craving a drug. She gave it a moment of hard thought, but found herself too tired to do any heavy thinking. _I just miss him._

(…)

She dreamed of herself in a dark alleyway, standing with a man who appeared to be a drug dealer. Glancing stealthily from side to side, as if assuring the absence of witnesses, she handed the hooded man money for a bulging body bag. She dragged the body through Konoha's back alleys, bringing it home and dumping it onto her living room floor. Kakashi's corpse rolled out from inside the plastic; its eyes were closed, creating the illusion of sleep. Sakura began to crush him up into a fine white powder. Upon completion of this task, she carefully lined some powder up on her knuckle and sniffed.

(…)

The next night, Sakura slumped into her apartment, even more spent than she had been the day before. She felt as if they were only working her harder at the hospital; she wished she could discuss the understaffing with Tsunade, but she was already doing her best to promote the medical program.

_No_, Sakura told herself. _No time to think about the problems with the system. You need _sleep.

Sakura mechanically went through the motions of taking a shower and getting into her pajamas, but her mind revolved solely on sleeping. In order to get to her bedroom, she walked through the living room past the television; with a shudder, she remembered her dream of the night before. For a moment, a strange hypnosis overcame her. It seemed as if a voice were calling out to her, encouraging her in velvety tones to come and sink into the comfortable couch cushions. _Go on, Sakura, _it called softly. _Surely there's no harm in a bedtime flick?_

The barking of a dog outside broke the spell. With a "humph", she reminded herself that she was far too tired for that anyway. This thought helped lighten the weight on her chest as she slipped into unconsciousness.

(…)

_Sakura was walking through a meadow. She glanced casually at the flowers; wild and colorful, they spread, devoid of a pattern, across the endless, grassy landscape. Squinting, Sakura peered into the distance. She could just make out a girl bending over and picking some._

_She started moving towards the girl, beginning in a curious walk but progressing into a run. The girl, however, seemed only to be getting farther and farther away._

"_Rin!"_

_The girl looked up when Sakura called. At first Rin looked confused, straightening up and clinging to her wicker basket. After a few moments, she smiled. "Kakashi," she said, sounding relieved._

_Sakura stopped running. Eyes wide, she watched as Kakashi walked past her. She had not sensed him behind her, but he strolled over to Rin, and they embraced. When they broke apart, he turned to scan the area behind Sakura. She opened her mouth to speak, but Kakashi put a finger to his. She found herself frozen, completely entranced by the way the breeze moved his silvery locks. His image began to shimmer, changing in the light as if it couldn't decide whether he was sixteen or thirty-eight._

_Frowning, Rin gathered the fabric of Kakashi's sleeve in one hand; Sakura reached out to grab the other. They both began to tug, pulling violently at Kakashi. He did not protest; he merely began laughing hysterically as he had in the hospital tape. His laughter was shrill and almost inhuman, causing the flowers at his feet to wither and die._

Sakura woke with a small scream, clutching at her blankets feverishly. Sweat poured down her in buckets; Kakashi's shrieking laughter still rang in her ears. She panted until her breathing had evened, waiting to move until she had calmed down. She ran a shaking hand through her pink locks, which had been plastered to her face.

She sat up for a time she didn't care to measure, staring with wide eyes out her window into the star-speckled sky. Sighing, she rolled over, shivering with a sudden chill. The images in her head remained until pure exhaustion dragged her into sleep. This time, she dreamed of nothing more consequential than skipping through a pillow factory with Naruto in a sailor suit.


	6. Five: Exploration

Yikes, these chapters keep getting longer and longer! And everything I wanted to fit into this chapter didn't even fit, so... Obla di obla da and all that. Well, there's almost lemon in this one, but I didn't much feel like writing it. Imagination and similar business... I don't particularly enjoy reading gratuitous sex scenes myself unless they contribute to the story— in which case they're lovely. Yum... ahem! Please enjoy this chapter of 'Static'. (Going back to that earlier point, if they're important to the plot, then they're not gratuitous anyway... sigh...)

* * *

It was raining in the hospital. Sakura walked slowly down the hallway, flipping through papers on her clipboard. She was making her rounds, musing on mundane things like Ino and Shikamaru's relationship and what she was going to eat for dinner that night. Kakashi had only left for his mission the day before, so it was likely she'd be eating alone.

"Haruno-sensei!" a voice called urgently. She looked behind her to see a male nurse running towards her. "Sensei, you're needed in surgery!"

Sakura turned sharply on her heel and began walking briskly towards the operating rooms. The nurse hurried to catch up with her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"An ANBU team just came in early— one of its members is badly wounded."

Sakura's heart skipped a beat. _Kakashi? _Inwardly nervous, she did her best to maintain a professional exterior as the nurse led her to the patient. She was relieved to see that it wasn't Kakashi. Worry gone, she focused her attention on healing the dying shinobi before her.

(…)

Hours later, Sakura slumped out of the operating room. Wearily, she pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from her brow. She was numb with exhaustion; it was one of her hardest operations yet. Drained and distracted by her fatigue and growling stomach, she paid little attention to where her feet were carrying her. Her eyes almost completely closed, she walked straight into someone. Even as pain shot through her nose, she recognized a very familiar smell.

_What…? Kakashi…?_

His hands had moved reflexively to her biceps; he was gripping them as she looked up at him, a little dazed. She blinked a few times to gain focus; she saw that he looked amused but a little concerned. Smiling, she mustered the energy to speak.

"Sorry for bumping into you," she mumbled. She dropped her eyes in a sigh. "I probably would have walked into a wall at this state…"

He gave her that big, eye-creasing smile. "Then it's a good thing you had a strong man like me to protect you from such a thing."

She pressed her face into his chest, murmuring incoherently. He chuckled, and she marveled at the feel of his chest vibrating with the laughter. He allowed them to stay in that position for a few long moments before turning her around and steering her out of the room.

Groaning, she complained, "I can _not _walk all the way back to my apartment…"

He shrugged. "Mine's closer."

(…)

Something about the rain must have rejuvenated Sakura; as she and Kakashi crossed the threshold of his apartment, she was complaining loudly.

"Damn _rain_!" she cursed. "As if I wasn't feeling horrible enough!"

"It certainly seemed to wake you up," Kakashi noted, amusement in his voice. She threw him a scathing look and stared heading towards his bathroom. Respecting her privacy, he did not follow.

"Why are you back so early?" she called. "You only left a day ago."

He sounded as if he were in the kitchen. "Oh, you know how those things work out sometimes…" His voice trailed off vaguely.

_No, I don't, _she thought. _You, Hatake Kakashi, are one of the only shinobi who could finish an ANBU mission early…_ Sighing, she grabbed a towel and began to dry off. She heard promising noises from the kitchen; her stomach grumbled in appreciation.

She walked out of the bathroom, towel draped around her neck. Kakashi was sitting at the table eating a sandwich. There was one set out for her at the place across from him. She sat down, her back to the rest of the apartment, and hungrily devoured the sandwich. It was late, and she had not eaten since mid-morning.

Eyebrow raised, Kakashi watched as she executed her attack. He looked mildly amused at the ferocity with which she consumed a simple lunchmeat sandwich. When she had finished, she smacked her lips and looked at him expectantly. As if to demonstrate the proper way to eat a sandwich, he had gone back to humbly chewing his food. Upon realizing that she was staring him down, he raised an eyebrow at her "What?"

"This is the first time I've been in your apartment."

He raised his other eyebrow in evident disbelief. "I question the truth of your claim."

She was busy craning her neck to turn and see what was visible of the apartment behind her. "I'm not misleading you," she assured him. Moving her head to face him again, she frowned. "Well… I was here that one time earlier this month when Tsunade dragged you into her office… but that was just to heal you. This apartment and I… we haven't been properly introduced."

Shaking his head, Kakashi stood. Sakura took brief note of how sexy he looked in the sleek ANBU uniform. The thought faded as he started walking out of the kitchen; she rose out of her chair and followed, but not before making a drumroll on the kitchen table. "The long-anticipated tour of the Hatake home is about to begin!" she announced.

Kakashi stifled a chuckle, trading it in for another shake of the head. "My kitchen, as you will see," he began, "is a lovely assortment of various essential appliances. You will see that the exterior of the refrigerator gleams with the promise of good food within. The clutter you are smirking at, Miss Haruno, suggests coziness. It is important, I think, to feel comfortable in one's own kitchen…"

Sakura folded her arms. "You have to do the thing properly," she interrupted him.

He paused. She thought he might be considering whether or not to humor her. Finally, he sighed. "How?"

"I need the apartment's _history_."

She growled when he only provided another sigh. "I'll make you provide backgrounds of the furniture, too, if you don't hurry up."

His head shook in dismissal of the threat, but he obeyed anyway. While gesturing to the apartment in general, he explained, "I've been living alone in this apartment since I was nine years old… I bought it with borrowed money— the debts for which I'm _still _paying, which is why I'm not made of money, as you seem to think."

_So he was parentless by the age of nine?_ With a familiar twinge of sympathy, she stored this valuable nugget of information.

He didn't seem to want to bother to go into further detail about the kitchen, so he proceeded to enter the living room with the distinctive air of a tour guide. "The living room, ma'am, is the heart of the apartment. The television (which has been replaced fifteen times) is positioned so that if an unexpected guest arrives and I'm watching something — ah — _unsavory_, if you will, I can easily change the station to something harmless. Of course, I don't watch much TV, so…"

"If you don't watch much TV," Sakura said curiously, "then why has it been replaced fifteen times?"

Kakashi gave only nervous laughter as a reply before hastily continuing with his glorified explanation. "Well, you know, at a glance, the loveseat appears to be worn and tattered, but this is only a sign that it has been put to many uses in the years since its purchase. You are, of course, rather familiar with this particular piece of furniture, so I'll just gloss over the details. The pillows were painstakingly selected to match the cushions and the general color scheme, but not enough to make the thought obvious… Rather, my designer…"

"Your _designer_?"

"Gai. Now, my designer…"

"You let _Gai _design your apartment?"

"My permission was not, apparently an issue," he answered; Sakura didn't miss the bitter bite to his voice. "Anyway, the cushions are stuffed with…"

"You call this glossing over the details?"

"Moving on, moving on… Now, heh heh, funny thing about this carpet is that when Pakkun's mother was in labor…"

Sakura tuned out the nastier aspects of this description, wondering instead if Kakashi loved or hated this apartment. _I can't see why anyone would want to live in here after seeing…_

"… I've never seen so many unidentified liquids in my life…"

… _that, but… Maybe it's a little bit of both._

Having finished with the living room, he took a few steps back and nodded towards the closet. "After some regrettable events involving _sake_, condoms, and Febreze, I no longer go in my hall closet." Sakura coughed on a laugh. "The front door has been broken down a total of three hundred and forty-two times."

"Okay," Sakura said, hands on her hips, "I have no desire to hear about the closet, but _three hundred and forty-two _times? That's completely made up, Kakashi."

Kakashi puts his hands up defensively. "I kid you not," he said. "I mean, I haven't _fixed _it that many times… sometimes I would just leave it hanging on one hinge… ah, do I really have to explain?"

Sakura was about to nod in the affirmative, but something told her she _really _didn't want to know. "No, no, just keep going."

Nodding in appreciation, Kakashi moved on to the bathroom, poking his head inside. Sakura walked right past him. "I've already seen all there is to see of that," she remarked before entering his bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.

It was neater than she would have imagined. The blanket was a friendly, greenish yellow color patterned with black shuriken. There was a cheap wooden desk near the solitary window, the blinds of which were twisted halfway to reveal shafts of light. A board above the desk was cluttered with newspaper clippings and other small pieces of paper; mostly lists of little consequence to Sakura. She approached the bed, placing her hand lightly on the blanket. Raising her head, she looked outside the window, observing the heavy downpour.

She suddenly registered his presence somewhere between the door and the bed. Turning, she saw him smiling at her. His hands were casually stuffed into his pockets. She noticed that he was still pretty wet; water dripped from his mess of silvery spikes. Returning his smile, she walked towards him, stopping a few inches in front of him. Her eyes traveled down his torso, and she put her hand to the zipper on his vest. She did not look up as she slowly pulled down until the vest was completely unzipped, revealing the tightly fitting sleeveless undershirt beneath it. Her hand rested on his lower abdomen. Finally, she looked up at him.

He met her eyes with an intense gaze. He seemed to sense that she was asking permission for something; he appeared to be debating whether or not to grant it. He broke their eye contact as he let his gaze slide slowly down to focus on the zipper of her red shirt. Tentatively, he raised a hand. She placed hers on his wrist, guiding it to her zipper. He paused. The rain pelting the window in the background seemed very loud.

A flash of lightning accompanied by a roll of thunder put their bodies in motion. They were suddenly all over each other, kissing with a passion absent from their earlier encounters. He was pulling her zipper down and she was tugging his gloves off, fumbling with the buckles on the arm guards before successfully removing them. In unison, he shrugged off his vest and she her shirt, leaving them both in undershirts, which they did not hesitate to remove from each other. Vertical positions only inhibiting their purpose, they landed unceremoniously on his bed. The mattress bounced, serving only to spur them on.

(…)

The rain continued to pour as Sakura groggily awoke. Entangled in blankets that were not her own, she became aware of an extra presence in her bed. She turned over, legs brushing against someone else's. At first, she was confused to see Kakashi lying on his back, bangs fluttering as he breathed quietly in and out. Memories of the night before soon flew through her mind, bringing color to her face. The blush receded and was replaced with a fond smile as she observed him. She was pleased to see that the blanket was low, revealing his sculpted abdomen. A silvery trail of hair disappeared beneath the sheets, sending an appreciative shiver down Sakura's spine.

His brow furrowed, and he shifted a little. With amusement, Sakura observed his reluctant re-entry into the physical world. He groaned, slowly blinking his eyes open. He ran a hand through his hair, and then gently over his scarred eye. His body seemed to be rejecting the idea of waking up as she turned on his side to face Sakura, regarding her with half-lidded eyes. Smiling, he murmured, "Morning," and she felt herself falling a little harder.

"Good morning," she mumbled. He leaned forward a little, gently pressing his lips to her forehead. The kiss lingered before he pulled away, leaving Sakura unable to keep the smile from her face. "What was that for?" she asked coyly.

He gave her his biggest eye-crease yet. "For reminding me to wear a condom."

She scowled and extracted an arm from the tangled mess of blankets to hit him on the forehead. She was a little annoyed that he broke their tender moment with such an inconsiderate deadpan, but she recognized that it was _too _tactless and that he was only teasing her. He dipped his head so that she hit his hair instead of his face. Her annoyance dissipated to be replaced with amusement as she began to play with the silver spikes. He maintained a blank expression.

Having reached and passed maximum interest, Sakura sat up. Her effort to make sure that the blanket covered her bare chest was more out of habit than to preserve her modesty (which, at this point, would have been rather silly). He just relaxed, showing no signs of moving from his comfortable position.

Rain continued to pound on the glass window. Sakura listened to it as she looked absently around the room. As she moved her gaze to the window, wanting to observe the rain more exclusively, she noticed some pictures on the sill that she hadn't noticed the night before. Feeling a familiar eagerness that she associated with Asuma's tapes, she leaned a little to try and get a better look.

"What are you looking at?"

She pulled back and looked down at him; he looked a little curious, which was a rare moment in Sakura's eyes. Nodding toward the window, she said, "I wanted to see the photographs on the windowsill."

He nodded, and she moved to get up, but he sat up instead. "I'll get them for you," he offered. Sakura gratefully sank further into the comfort of his bed as he slid out, pulling on some boxers as he went to get the pictures. He returned to the bed with three framed photographs, sitting cross-legged and leaning against the headboard with the blanket spread over his lap. He placed the photos on the blanketed knee closer to Sakura; she shifted her position in order to get a better view, so that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.

The first one Sakura noticed was the old Team 7 photo. She brushed the glass fondly with her fingertips, smiling with amusement and more than just a twinge of nostalgia. Laughing a little, she commented, "Wow… they boys and I look so young." She wanted to say that _he _didn't look any different, but even if his physical appearance hadn't changed, the way she saw him had.

Kakashi smiled, speaking softly. "The three of you have all changed a lot… but in some ways, you're still the same kids who shouted at and baited and flirted with each other."

Sakura made a noise between indignation and amusement. "I'm not _that _shameless anymore."

"Who said anything about you? I was thinking more of the playful banter between Naruto and Sasuke." Sakura shoved his shoulder playfully, failing to hide her laugh. She pushed aside the Team 7 photo to focus her attention on the next one.

Three people stood posing for the picture. There was a man who looked similar to Kakashi, but with a stockier build. He had hazel eyes (unlike Kakashi's natural black) and a harder expression to his face. The second was a tall and slender woman with wavy black hair that fell halfway down her back. Her eyes were dark, like Kakashi's, and she had a faraway look in her face. The man had his arm wrapped around her waist, hugging her to his side. The third and smallest person was a toddler with messy silver hair and a broad smile, his dimples carving happiness into his pale face. He was clutching onto his father's pant leg with evident pride.

Smiling curiously, Sakura looked up at Kakashi. He, too, had been looking at the picture, but looked up when she did.

"Is this you and your parents?" He nodded. She thought he seemed a little wary. She looked back at the picture, noticing the slightly old-fashioned style. "How long ago was this taken?"

She could feel him shrugging. "Well… I was two or three in the picture, so… it must've been no more than twenty years ago."

Sakura only shook her head. Observing the toddler Kakashi, she found it impossible to fathom that the happy little boy in the photograph was the same man she had shared such a passionate night with, so she instead began to study Kakashi's mother.

"_His mother happened upon a funny mushroom and ate it. Unfortunately, this resulted in her eventual invisibility." _Asuma's words floated through her head as she observed the woman; Kakashi had her eyes, down to the last crinkle. Sakura's gaze skipped over to the strong man beside her. She was taken aback by how similar he was to Kakashi, although she picked up on subtle differences in the eyes and demeanor. She racked her brain for one of Asuma's cryptic messages that alluded to Kakashi's father, but she found nothing. She bit her lip in frustration.

"Something wrong?"

She hesitated before turning to look at him. "What happened to them?"

Kakashi shrugged; Sakura could tell that he was attempting to dismiss his discomfort, which she could still see a trace of in his eyes. "My mother died when I was four, so I can't really remember her very well."

Before she could think, Sakura blurted out, "How?"

Kakashi looked a little surprised at the question— whether it was from the abruptness or the content, she couldn't tell. He regarded her hesitantly for a quick moment before speaking. His response was curt and almost hasty, and he was doing a worse job than usual of masking — _is that annoyance?_ — his voice. "She caught something while abroad on a mission and grew very ill when she reached home, passing away a few months later."

Suddenly, Sakura felt very sad. She mumbled a guilty apology. Kakashi shrugged, and she thought he looked almost a little relieved. She couldn't imagine why, though, so she figured she must have been reading him wrong. "It must have been hard on your father," she said quietly.

Instead of looking at her, his eyes dropped down to the picture on his knee. She followed his gaze to the image of his father, immortalized in the faded ink.

"No," he said harshly. She wanted to look up at him, but if his voice was any indication, his face would probably be displaying an uncomfortable level of intensity. He seemed to realize how cold he sounded, for he immediately tried to make amends. He adopted a much milder tone and said, "By the end, he was ready to move on."

Sakura's eyes flickered to him, and she saw that he was now looking at his toddler self. She considered asking him what happened to his father, too, but she saw the hardened and even embittered look on his face and decided against it, saving those questions for a later time. Instead, she smiled and said, "Okay, what about this last one then?"

He did not look at her as he pushed the family portrait gently to the side, but she could see his almost angry expression replaced by a smile. _Of relief, probably._ He picked up the last photo and wiped it off (almost lovingly, Sakura thought), holding it so that she could see.

"This is my old team," he said softly.

Sakura brightened up. "Ooh, your genin team?"

"Well…" A pause. "I was a chuunin, but in essence, it's the same thing." She nodded, remembering that he had passed through the system at an accelerated pace. She smiled at the picture of the Fourth Hokage. _He looks so much like Naruto,_ she thought (and not for the first time). _It's really too bad they never got to meet… I wonder how they would have gotten along._ She spared brief attention for the young Kakashi, noticing sadly how he already looked so jaded. The young boy in this picture was no longer the smiling child who had clung to his father's pant leg. She looked a little curiously at the dark-haired boy. _Hm… hey, could this be Obito? _She recalled from reading Rin's file that Uchiha Obito had donated his Sharingan for an unorthodox transplant. Although this boy was wearing a smile she had never seen on an Uchiha, he had the same dark hair, dark eyes, and pale complexion. She resisted the urge to look at Kakashi's closed eye. Instead, she finally focused her full attention on Rin.

Different images Sakura had seen of Rin drifted across the mind. Making out passionately with Kakashi… an unsmiling photograph on her medical file… tugging her shirt over her head… shaking on her deathbed…

"You okay?" Kakashi's voice dragged her out of her darkly progressing nest of thoughts. She looked at him to see that his brow was furrowed in concern, and she realized that she was wearing an extremely melancholy expression. Adopting a blanker look, she was quiet a moment before answering with a question.

"What did Rin mean to you?"

His open eye widened in surprise. He shifted a little on the bed, and she recognized his discomfort but did not soften her expression or relinquish her question. He looked away, frowning.

"Nn… she was my teammate and friend… Haven't we already talked about this?"

Sakura's stony countenance did not weaken. "How close were you?"

He glanced at her uncomfortably; he held her gaze, looking very wary of her sudden curiosity. "Very close."

She tilted her head to the side. "Did you ever consider a future with Rin?"

Kakashi looked very taken aback (and almost a little disturbed) by her question. Sakura felt almost as surprised as he appeared; she wasn't quite sure where that had come from. She supposed it was a spontaneous and roundabout way of finding out his feelings about long-term commitment (something she was finding herself increasingly interested in), but also as part of a slightly unconscious craving to find out more about him and to get new emotions out of him. This feeling was not borne out of a sadistic desire to watch him squirm, but because she found herself craving the very _experience _of him— physical, mental, emotional… everything.

He cocked his head to the side a little, regarding her carefully. She figured he must have been weighing his response. Without breaking her gaze, he said slowly, "Rin and I never got far enough to even consider something so abstract as a future."

Initially, she felt some irritation at his frustratingly prudent answer. _Now he's being too tactful, _she mused sourly. These feelings quickly faded into guilt and embarrassment mixed with a surge of affection for him. She leaned over to kiss him, mouthing "Okay, Kashi" into his lips. She could taste his relief at the comforting familiarity of the kiss. He seemed to release some of the tension in his body as he kissed her back fully. They melted into the kiss for a little while before breaking apart. Sakura saw that the uneasiness had, for the most part, dissipated, and that he was back to looking more like the Kakashi she was falling in love with. He smiled at her (not an eye crease, another positive point) and let his finger linger on her cheek, his knuckle brushing her cheekbone, before dropping his hand and yawning. He mumbled something about a shower through the yawn and slipped out from underneath the blankets. He stretched his arms, groaning as several of his joints cracked, and then headed to the bathroom. Sakura was left sitting on the bed, looking at the three pictures.

Ignoring the familiar Team 7 photo, she took the other two into her hands, holding them side-by-side. She gave each a hard look in turn— first his team picture, and then his family one. A little bit of irritation began to bubble beneath the surface. _He was being so distant with me!_

Another side of her immediately shot back an argument. _The hell are you complaining about? _it demanded. _You two just had sex — and some really great sex, too!_

Sakura paused before countering. _That makes it even worse, doesn't it? Even after we share the most intimate experience conceivable, he still doesn't want to open up to me. _It did not occur to Sakura that he had disclosed more personal information to her than he ever had.

As if the other side was responding, a memory of Tsunade sitting at her desk came to mind.

_Tsunade was leaning back with her arms crossed, talking to Shizune and Sakura. The disgruntled curve to her lips foretold another feminist lecture. "Men are different from women like you and me," she said. "They draw a much more distinct line between physical sensations and emotional ones."_

_Sakura looked a little confused. Shizune stepped in, objecting to Tsunade's generalization. "With all due respect, milady, that is a gross exaggeration. Not all men are like that!" Her face was flushed, and Tsunade raised an eyebrow in unamused surprise. Sakura could tell she was thinking of Shizune's man of choice, a certain senbon-sucking jounin. The blonde fixed Shizune with a surprisingly unreadable (was that understanding in her honey-colored eyes?) gaze before sliding it back to Sakura. "Be that as it may," she said loudly, "and acknowledging that there are some exceptions, most men — especially in our profession — would rather open their legs than their hearts."_

_There was a pause as the words sunk in. Tsunade blinked and made a face, wrinkling her nose. "What the fuck was that?" she muttered. "I really am getting old, aren't I?" Sentimentality lost, she took a swig of sake and started barking orders._

Sakura mulled over Tsunade's "warning", wondering if Kakashi would fall under the category of an "exception". She thought briefly to the night before, wondering again how deep his feelings for her were. She sat quietly for a little while, listening to him in the shower, before deciding that she should probably be getting home.

She started getting out of bed, stepping lightly over yesterday's hastily discarded clothing and heading towards his dresser. She opened drawers, figuring she'd borrow some of his. _Besides, I think I'll feel much better wrapped up in his scent all day. _She looked through his clothes, grabbing a standard-issue shirt and matching pants. _Does this guy own anything but uniforms? _A mischievous glint danced across her eyes as she slipped on a pair of his blue boxers, throwing the rest of the clothes on top. They nearly swamped her; she had to roll the sleeves up several times just to free her hands. She was incredibly amused to discover that the bottom drawer housed a collection of identical navy blue masks. They were folded into neat piles, contrary to the rest of Kakashi's wardrobe. Grinning, she shifted through the masks. She was contemplating stealing some and wondering if he'd notice when her finger touched something hard; she recognized the cool steel of a blade. When she had unearthed it from the masks and fully uncovered it, she realized it was broken.

Glancing around to ensure that Kakashi was still in the shower, Sakura cautiously removed the halved sword. The handle was wound with cloth, worn from use. She turned it over carefully in her hands, taking care not to cut herself on the jagged edge of the blade. While observing this uneven cut, she noticed that there seemed to be something carved into the blade. Poor lighting from the misty morning sky made it difficult to read, so she held it up to her face. She could make out the name "Hatake Sakumo", blunt and worn away by time.

_Sakumo, Sakumo… _She racked her brains, trying to remember where she had heard the name before. After searching through her memories, something clicked. For the second time that morning, Tsunade came to mind. _It was the day Kakashi came in injured, and Tsunade had been scared shitless. I was leaving to heal Kakashi, and Tsunade-sama muttered something to Shizune about being 'reminded of Sakumo'…_ And, now that Sakura thought of it, earlier than that, the Hokage had growled something to the effect of "Hatakes— they're all so oblivious". That in mind, Sakura looked again with curiosity at the name carved into the blade.

The name "White Fang of Konoha" jumped out at her. Surprised, she wondered where she had heard that before and why it seemed to go so well with "Hatake Sakumo". A few moments brought to mind an old memory of Chiyou mistaking Kakashi for someone else. That had been back when they went to Suna to save Gaara; Sakura had been distracted by Kankurou at the time, but she remembered that Chiyou had been convinced that Kakashi was this White Fang person who had killed her son. Ebizou had convinced her otherwise, pointing out that they looked alike but weren't the same person. She seemed to recall someone later saying that the White Fang of Konoha was named Sakumo, rather than Kakashi. Thinking back to the picture of Kakashi's father — who had looked so much like him — she figured that Sakumo must have been his name. The time frame roughly fit, and someone who didn't know Kakashi well could easily have mistaken him.

Questions about Sakumo plagued Sakura as she looked at the sword. _Who was this man? What was he like? And when did he die?_ She also was confused at how upset Kakashi had been when Sakura had mentioned how his mother's death must have been hard on his father. She was unconvinced by his attempt to explain it away afterwards. _Something must have happened, _she thought, _but what? Marital problems?_ It was entirely plausible. The main contributor to her confusion was the fact that she could not find any references to Sakumo in Asuma's narration of Kakashi's life.

It crossed her mind that he could have died a normal death— perhaps on a mission, or even of old age. The latter was unlikely, but it was hard to determine the age of a man with silver hair. Curiously, she ran a finger dangerously close to the jagged edge. She was almost about to touch it before she heard a familiar voice behind her say, "Careful."

She whipped her head around, looking shocked to see Kakashi leaning against the doorway. He had a towel wrapped loosely around his waist and another draped over his shoulder. His hair was limp, and water dripped off of him into a puddle on the floor. Judging by the size of said puddle, he had been standing in the doorway for some time. He was watching her through his natural eye with an unreadable (but certainly not amused) look on his face. Guiltily, Sakura's gaze dropped to the sword in her hand.

She spent a moment trying to summon words before finding her voice. "I-I was just looking—"

"I'm not mad." Although his voice was calm and his face was still blank, Sakura had a hard time believing him. Their eyes met and she searched his black one for a betrayal of anger while trying to maintain an assertive demeanor.

The small smile he gave her didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's okay to be curious."

She nodded and turned to put the sword back in the drawer before standing up, smoothing out the baggy pants and rolling up her oversized sleeves to her elbows. As she adjusted her clothing, she caught him staring below her neckline. She thought it a curious time for his gaze to wander; her bust line was all but lost in his enormous shirt. Nevertheless, she smiled slyly. He noticed this, and his eye moved back up to look at her face.

"I'm glad you found my face," she commented.

He smiled. "You look cute wearing my clothes."

_Shameless. _Sakura shook her head and walked forward. "I'd better get going," she said. He nodded, and they leaned in to kiss each other. She could sense his surprise that the synchronization was so effortless— she was surprised, too, but also very pleased.

When they broke apart, she smiled. "Good-bye, Kakashi." She deliberately did not bring up the issue of him washing and returning her clothes; she was afraid he'd ask the same of her, and she wasn't sure she wanted to give up his clothing. _Besides, he might enjoy my clothes just as much as I enjoy his,_ she thought. _Even if mine are all sweaty and his are freshly laundered…_

Kakashi stepped out of the way to let her leave. As she was leaving, she glanced over her shoulder and could see Kakashi leaning over one of the pictures on his bed. The angle was poor and she couldn't make out his expression, but it emboldened her in her new quest to find out about this mysterious White Fang father of his. Closing the door to his apartment, she decided that this was going to take precedence over her desire to find out more about Rin. She had already learned a great deal about Kakashi's brown-haired lover, but his father— that was an untapped source of information. Surely, something must have happened to bring that level of anger into Kakashi's voice when he mentioned the man's grief (or lack of it). _Who was this man?_ Perhaps Asuma hadn't found it worth adding into his description of Kakashi's life, but Sakura was prepared to find out.


	7. Six: Sakumo

Wowzas, I wrote this in two days... yay! It's important to keep in mind that Sakura is not always right. I feel like there was more I wanted to say.

* * *

Sakura thought it might arouse suspicion in her colleagues if she showed up in men's clothing, so she hurried home to assemble a more appropriate outfit. Upon arriving at the hospital, however, she was informed that she was to be working in Tsunade's office today. Shizune was apparently busy and Tsunade needed an extra hand. She didn't trust Izumo and Kotetsu to help her with the work, so she sent word for Sakura instead. Sakura had obliged, and found herself spending her afternoon sorting through papers. Needless to say, reports of routine scouting missions and political updates were of little interest to her, so she opted to stare out the window at the overcast sky and think of Kakashi. She tried to concentrate on her work, of course, but his voice kept drifting in and out of her thoughts. Whenever the breeze brushed her skin, she thought she could feel his fingers trailing up and down her arms, neck, and back.

"Who's the lucky man?" Startled by the question, Sakura looked over at her mentor. The woman wore an undeniable smirk; not for the first time, Sakura wondered if Tsunade could read her mind.

Sakura decided to feign innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tsunade snorted. "You're positively glowing," she said (_what is it with these people and mixed metaphors? _Sakura wondered), "and staring longingly at the window… plus your face is pink." The smugness was almost unbearable. Sakura opened her mouth to object, but Tsunade cut her off with a wave of her be-jeweled hand. Shaking her head, she said, "It's no use lying. I'm an _expert _at this sort of thing."

Sakura scoffed, but behind the façade her insides were squirming. Kakashi had said there was nothing to be ashamed of, and she didn't _want _to be ashamed, but she was afraid that Tsunade would have a bad reaction.

Still smirking, Tsunade leaned forward. "Who is he?"

Despite Tsunade's attempts at prying, Sakura refused to give a name. Tsunade leaned back in her chair, putting her hands up and addressing the ceiling. "I guess I'll just have to put up signs asking a reward for the man who will step forward and admit to having slept with Haruno Sakura in front of the entire town…"

Again, Sakura scoffed. "In all due respect, shishou, you'd never find the right guy that way."

"Fair enough," Tsunade acknowledged. "Maybe I needn't search any farther than the original Team 7 boys." Sakura's eyes inadvertently widened and Tsunade's smirk returned. Her chair legs fell to the floor with a clatter. "Bingo."

All Sakura could do at this point was glower at Tsunade. Denial would only weaken her position.

Tsunade adopted a thoughtful expression. "Well, they both have their pros and their cons," she began. "Sasuke has the whole tall-dark-and-handsome thing going for him, but brooding gets really old really fast. Naruto? Well, I admit that he can be a looker depending on the lighting, but he's so damned _loud. _Don't accuse me of being hypocritical, now, Sakura— you know it's true, that kid can be heard from miles around. As far as the sexual side of things?" She shook her head. "Sakura, Sakura, you shouldn't ask an old lady about that sort of thing. Since you're pressuring me for an answer, though— don't give me that look, I can see it in your eyes — they both have gorgeous sets of abs. I mean, it's not so much a rarity in our line of work, but still… You could fry eggs on those things. And rock solid, too." She nodded in appreciation before looking expectantly at Sakura. "So, which one?"

Sakura took one deep breath, gathering her resolve. In her mind, a mantra of Kakashi's words pounded against her skull. "_And I certainly don't feel that I have anything to be ashamed about. Anything to be ashamed about. Anything to be ashamed about." _ She suspected her voice to be timid, but it turned out pretty clear— it could have even passed for confident if it weren't for the tremble.

"Neither."

Tsunade looked confused for a moment before something clicked. Her lips parted in shock for an agonizingly long moment as she stared at Sakura, seemingly in disbelief. As her face smoothed over, she let out an indifferent grunt. "Hatake, huh?"

Sakura nodded, slightly cautious. She was perched on the edge of her figurative seat, anticipating the explosion. _It's like watching a kettle that's about to boil… Or more like a volcano that's about to erupt…_

Pursing her lips together, Tsunade observed the papers in front of her. "Did he wear a condom?"

Sakura blinked, but she was too frightened to take offense at the invasive question. "Yes, Shishou." She was still waiting for the bomb to go off.

Tsunade nodded in approval. Sakura waited, but after receiving no prompt to continue, she politely cleared her throat. 'It wasn't just a one-night stand, shishou, if that's what—"

"Of course I know it wasn't just a one-night stand," Tsunade interrupted. 'Hatake isn't stupid enough to put his pretty little ass in so much danger."

Tempting as the image of Kakashi's "pretty little ass" was, Sakura pushed it from her mind and tried to concentrate on the meaning behind Tsunade's words. Eventually, timid and missing the assertive attitude of earlier, she asked, "Are you angry?"

She could tell that Tsunade was resisting the urge to bite her lip. After a measured pause, she said, "As long as you're well aware of what you're getting yourself into, I'm" — she hesitated at what started out as the word "happy", changing it to "supportive" — "supportive of your relationship."

Sakura couldn't help but sigh with relief. Tsunade had been focusing her attention on the window as if her life depended on memorizing every last ran streak muddling the glass. When she glanced Sakura's way, Sakura felt compelled to speak. "I was worried you'd think Kakashi was taking advantage of me," she confided.

Tsunade snorted, and Sakura looked at her questioningly. "While some people who don't know you very well might see it that way, if I taught you anything, it was never to let anyone — friend, man, opponent — take advantage of you."

Sakura blinked, astonished as she usually was at moments like these (especially sober ones) with Tsunade saying something so… maternal. In an apparent attempt to crack the sudden mood, Tsunade snorted. "Fuck, how old am I?" she muttered. Checking her watch, she took a swig of _sake._ Sakura sighed. _Moment over._

Tsunade polished off the _sake_ and gave Sakura a crooked smile. _Here we go…_

"So, Hatake Kakashi. Pros and cons." Sakura groaned, and Tsunade immediately said, "Pros— unbelievably sexy."

Sakura's face turned pink and Tsunade sighed, passing her the _sake. _Sakura shakily accepted a glass. Tsunade looked like she was going to say more, but they were interrupted by Shizune pushing the door open.

"Where were you?" Tsunade asked.

Shizune waved off the question. "I was just running errands." Her airy tone was out of character, and her face was flushed. Sakura thought her hair looked a little _too _neat, as if she were trying to play up the innocent act. It was obvious that Shizune was lying, which she was terrible at when it came to life outside of missions. Remembering an evening a week or two ago when Sakura saw Shizune arm in arm with Shiranui Genma, Sakura had an inkling of what had been keeping the black-haired woman busy.

Tsunade, too, seemed to guess this; she let out an unconvinced "Uh-huh" but did not press the topic. Instead, her face turned blank. (In retrospect, Sakura thought she should have seen the danger sign.)

"So Sakura and Kakashi are having sex." Her blunt announcement sent Shizune glancing wide-eyed at Sakura, her mouth hanging open in surprise. Unabashed, Tsunade continued, "We were just going over his pros and cons."

After a few minutes of stunned silence — during which Sakura was staring resolutely out the window so as to avoid Shizune's stare — Shizune did her best to compose herself. "Kakashi, Kakashi…" she said distractedly. "Pros? Cons?" A sudden change came over her. Sakura gave the black-haired woman her full attention, bewildered by her sudden dip in mood; Shizune looked genuinely irritated.

"While he is excellent in his professional life and an ideal shinobi in many ways," she said, "he has no grasp on how to handle his personal life." Her tone wasn't dark, but she sounded more than a little annoyed with the Copy Ninja. "He's got no frame of reference."

It was Sakura's turn to stare open-mouthed. Tsunade looked a little taken aback, but not all that surprised. Realizing after a moment how she sounded, she tried to make amends. (This reminded Sakura of how Kakashi was when she commented on his father's take on his mother's death.) "Well," she said, "sometimes he just had a hard time dealing with certain things, which is, you know, only to be expected, considering his upbringing…"

"No." Tsunade cut her off sharply. Both Shizune and Sakura looked at Tsunade (instead of the ground and Shizune, respectively). Tsunade was staring at Shizune. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she appeared to be weighing her thoughts, which was something the Godaime rarely did. Finally, she said, "_Considering his upbringing, _he's doing a damn good job."

There was a long, awkward silence. Something about the situation brought forth a reckless side of Sakura. _Oh, hell._

"Um… would this be a bad time to ask you who Hatake Sakumo is?"

Suddenly, Tsunade was livid. _Oh shit, _definitely_ not the right time to ask…_ Shizune stepped in before her angry master could say anything. "You should get out of here," she told Sakura. She glanced at Tsunade, whose nostrils were flaring, before her eyes darted back to Sakura and narrowed. "_Now._"

Sakura didn't need telling twice. She stood and hurried out as quickly as her legs would allow. She did not stop until she was out of sight of Hokage Tower.

Once she was a safe distance from the notoriously explosive Tsunade, she stopped and leaned against a fence, catching her breath. As her pulse returned to normal, she felt the same irritation she felt at Kakashi's place earlier that morning coming back. She was upset because, for the second time that day, she had been denied the information she was seeking. What made it even more frustrating was that people were having these bad reactions to the mention of Sakumo's name (from Kakashi's harsh response to her question to Tsunade's barely controlled anger… although that was, admittedly, partially Sakura's fault for underestimating just how tactless her question was), but she had no idea why. Obviously, it was a very sore subject for the people close to her, and she was sick of being in the dark.

Drastic times called for drastic measures, so she made the decision to take another tape from Kurenai's closet; she knew there were at least two more left. With her mind made up, she changed direction and headed towards Kurenai's place.

(…)

Akio had let her in once again without a fuss (_"Doesn't he have anything better to do than hang around at home all day? He's turning out to be more like Shikamaru than Asuma…")_, and she found herself feeling around Kurenai's bedroom closet. The closet light was off so as not to bring about any unnecessary suspicion. She shifted through the piles of forgotten items, searching for the familiar box. With a quiet "aha" of triumph, she unearthed a labeled tape. There were scribbles in an unfamiliar handwriting, but she could just make out the word 'Kakashi'. Unfortunately, the back of the closet where the rest of the tapes usually were was very messy. Last time she was there, she scrambled out in a hurry. This made it hard to tell whether this one was with the rest of the tapes.

As she was pushing things aside, she felt a light shining on her back and heard the voice of a young boy.

"Gotcha."

She turned awkwardly (having been on her hands and knees) and saw Kurenai's son framed in the doorway. He was shining a flashlight at her, shedding light on the tape, which she clutched protectively. She cursed herself for being absorbed by her search that she got outsmarted by a _nine-year-old_, she started trying to deliver an explanation. "I was just searching for something I dropped when…"

The kid put up a hand, cutting off her feeble story. "I know what you're up to."

She stopped, wondering how much this kid could really know; she was fairly confident it couldn't be much. _He's probably just bluffing._

"I know you've been watching some of my dad's old tapes," he explained. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"How do you know?"

Akio rolled his eyes. He spoke as if the answer were obvious. "I saw that the light had been left on, so I went into the closet after you left last time. I saw a bunch of tapes with the names of my mom's friends on them, so when Mom got home from the store I asked her what they were."

(Sakura had a mental chant of '_Dammit_' going through her head. How could she be so _stupid _as to leave the _light _on?)

Continuing his story, Akio said, "My mom told me that in his late teens, Dad got it into his head that he should develop his more artistic side and started filming his friends a lot. He eventually lost interest and moved to live with some monks." He wrinkled his nose, clearly confused by the last part. Sakura nodded mutely.

Yawning a little, Akio looked at her. He seemed bored. "What are you going to bribe me with?" he asked bluntly.

Although she said nothing, her face must have betrayed her surprise. Akio sighed. "I won't keep your secret for free."

Sakura blinked before regarding him carefully. Her eyes roved his person for any indication of something he might want. They fell on the lollipop dangling from his mouth.

_Aha…_ Pouring on faux sweetness, she smiled. "So you like candy, huh?"

He nodded suspiciously, but she saw that he couldn't hide the gleam in his eyes. For a fraction of a second, her smile grew; she suppressed it in fear that it would give her away. Replacing it with a fake frown, she tilted her head to the side. "Do you have to pay for the candy yourself?"

He hesitated before nodding. "Mom wants me to learn to appreciate the value of a ryou," he supplied.

Sakura nodded, noticing that he was rambling— always a good sign in this sort of situation. She tried to convey genuine sympathy in the look she gave him while making sure that she didn't lay it on too thick— the kid wasn't _that _stupid. She let out a rather exaggerated "Hmmm" and pretended to be deep in thought for a few moments before letting her face light up in "discovery". Quickly adopting a more businesslike tone, she offered, "I'll buy you with a month's supply of lollipops… You'll get them every week for the next four weeks."

He pretended to consider the offer before grudgingly accepting. This was also a complete act, Sakura knew— she saw the hastily hidden excitement he showed after her proposition.

Firmly, the pair shook hands. He let her out with a warning to uphold her end of the deal. She was hardly even listening to him as she gave him a "Yup" in return, practically skipping back to her apartment.

(…)

A light drizzle was starting to fall as Sakura crouched in front of the VCR, holding up the tape. She peered at the label, performing a minor double take. Before Kakashi's name, there was a scratched-out phrase that looked like "Kakashi-kun's Practice Tape". If she didn't know better, she would think that it was Naruto's handwriting. Looking at it, she wondered if this one was another Asuma himself did not film. She inspected the tape and decided that it was probably not another hospital tape. Judging by the title, it was pretty harmless. Although she experienced a flicker of doubt about popping the tape in and watching something that maybe she shouldn't, it was easily overpowered by her earlier feelings of irritation and her curiosity. Unable to resist it anymore, she pushed the tape in and backed up into the couch, her eyes never leaving the screen.

The bright blue of the sky suggested noontime, but it was difficult to tell; the screen started out rather fuzzy. It kept focusing in and out, as if someone were having trouble with it. An unfamiliar male voice was muttering off-screen. Finally, three stumps Sakura knew all too well came into focus. The man behind the camera let out a triumphant cry.

The camera moved around before landing on a young boy with a shock of white hair. Sakura recognized him as a young Kakashi, probably around eight or nine. He rolled his eyes at the older man's antics. The cameraman adopted a pouty tone. "Couldn't you just smile for the camera?" he pleaded. "C'mon, Kakashi-kun."

Kakashi rolled his eyes again; Sakura almost squealed. The resemblance between this Kakashi and the one she knew was remarkable, even though the one on screen would probably only brush her bust line with his hair. Sakura re-directed her attention to the events on the tape.

The man behind the camera's voice grew sterner. "You had better pay attention," he told the younger boy. "There are times you'll have to operate these for missions, and it's very important to know how to use it properly. Kakashi agreed with a "Yes, sensei", and the man Sakura now recognized as Namikaze Minato, the Fourth Hokage, began to explain the particulars of video camera operation. She found it a little strange (not unpleasant, but strange) to hear the voice of Naruto's father.

Eventually, Minato handed the machine over to Kakashi. When Kakashi was behind the camera, the view was much, much lower and very shaky. It was currently pointed at the Memorial Stone. "Get me in the picture," Minato instructed. Kakashi swerved the camera to face his teacher, but it only came up to his waist. (Sakura for one didn't mind the nice view of the Fourth's midriff, even if the area was hidden by baggy pants). Muttering something, Kakashi stepped backwards and tilted the camera up, finally focusing on the face of the Fourth. Sakura was startled by the similarities between father and son; although Minato's expression was more subdued, he and Naruto shared exactly the same eyes and face. Minato's hair was, if possible, even unrulier than Naruto's, but the blonde spikes were still nearly the same; Sakura thought that if Naruto were to grow his hair out and put concealer on his cheeks, the two would be nearly identical.

Minato had been watching Kakashi carefully. His brow was creased in a frown, the corners of his mouth dipping down. When Kakashi said "Okay, sensei", however, his face broke into a grin that Sakura knew all too well.

"Congratulations," he said, pride gleaming in his cerulean eyes. "You can turn the camera off now." There was some fumbling, and the screen cut to static.

Sakura watched the black and white crackling, feeling a mix of relief, pleasure, and disappointment. She was glad that she hadn't seen anything horrible, and she took great joy in seeing Yondaime and the little Kakashi. Despite this, she couldn't help but feeling a little put out at not finding anything new. Just as she was about to accept defeat and get up to take the tape out, there was a dense zipping noise and the static faded into another movie.

The camera was focused steadily on a traditional house with a collection of trees in the background. The late-afternoon sun cast shadows over the house and grass, creating a peaceful atmosphere as the trees blew gently back and forth in the breeze. Cicadas chirping in the background suggested summer. The view began to slide up and down, allowing the viewer to fully observe the house. Sakura hadn't seen houses like that in Konoha very often; only the very oldest areas had houses, let alone ones with sliding paper doors and such antiquated structure.

The voice of a younger Kakashi interrupted the tranquil silence. "Hatake Kakashi," he said, his voice rigid with formality. "Eight years old last September. Chuunin under Namikaze Minato. This is the house I've lived in since I was born." He paused before adding, "Sensei told me that I'm supposed to tell things to the camera… It seems a little silly; I mean, it's not as if anybody is listening… And Sensei probably won't even watch this. He's so busy…" Static rang in Sakura's ears as he sighed. He moved the camera to study some birds flying out of the trees behind his house. Sakura, too, took a moment to appreciate the peacefulness. She doubted this calm carried to the rest of Konoha, though; she knew that by this time, the village was at war. She could understand why Kakashi would want to treasure these few precious moments, absent of violence and bloodshed.

There was some still silence before he returned the camera to the house and started to walk towards it. "Sensei told me to go and tape some of my friends," he commented. Sakura thought it a little odd the way he spoke the word "sensei" with such reverence; it slipped as easily out of his mouth as one would say "mom" or "dad". "But I don't really have any of those… except for that scary kid in Spandex and the youngest son of the Hokage. And I don't really like talking to them much, so I just wanted to tape my dad instead, which would be easier anyway because he doesn't talk much lately. He'll probably let me stop early and might even teach me a new jutsu."

By the time his broken rambling had stopped, he had pulled aside the door and revealed a sitting room. "It's for tea and guests," he explained, "although the guests we get these days aren't interested in tea." Sakura did not miss the sour edge to this comment.

"I wonder where he is?" Kakashi asked no one in particular. He walked into the kitchen, calling out for him.

"Father?"

There was no response, so he called again, this time with more affection.

"Daddy?"

Shuffling noises could be heard from the hallway. A door slid open behind Kakashi; he turned but once again only captured the middle of his subject. A voice that sounded like the adult Kakashi's but deeper and more tired said, "Kakashi?"

The camera moved up to capture Sakumo's face. He looked much different than he had in the photograph, Sakura thought. The Sakumo she remembered from the family picture had been well built, but this one was much skinnier. His face was also of a much paler hue. The purple circles around his eyes underlined his overall exhaustion. These details aside, it was his eyes that shocked Sakura most. They were frighteningly devoid of hope and happiness— just an empty sadness.

Kakashi cleared his throat. "This is my father, Hatake Sakumo, White Fang of Konoha."

Sakumo frowned at the introduction. "What are you doing?"

"Minato-sensei told me to practice filming," Kakashi answered. "He said it's a good skill to learn." _He'd believe anything that man told him, _Sakura mused. _He sounds as if he's talking about a god._

Grunting, Sakumo looked away from the camera. After a pause, he sighed. "You should find better things to film… Don't you have any friends in the village?"

She could hear the frown in Kakashi's voice. "That's what Sensei said, too, but I don't really have a lot of friends. The other kids mostly avoid me, just like everyone else."

Apathy in Sakumo's frown transformed into sadness. He turned to face Kakashi again, his brow furrowed. Expectancy seemed to hang in the air, but Sakumo said nothing.

Kakashi eventually broke the silence. "Besides," he said, "they're not as interesting as you anyway."

Sakumo grunted again and pushed himself off the wall. The camera followed him as he turned and walked back the way he came. Kakashi started to trail his father. "If you're not going to be on the tape, then maybe I might as well stop and you could teach me a new technique instead?" It seemed that it was a natural reflex of his to turn statements into requests when his father was concerned. Sakumo did not slow his pace, ignoring Kakashi. Obviously upset, Kakashi ran up to stand in front of him. He lost concern for the film, letting the camera hang loosely from his right hand to focus on the ground. Sakura could only judge their movements now by sound and shadows.

Sakumo's footsteps stopped.

"Please?" Kakashi breathed.

Again, Sakumo grunted. "Go away," he said gruffly. Still, Kakashi did not give up, but his relentless pleas were only met with more grunting._ It's his default reaction for everything, isn't it?_

Finally, Kakashi got fed up. "You never want to spend time with me anymore!" he said loudly. "You don't even _talk_! All you do is grunt and tell me to leave you alone! How alone can you be, Dad?" The camera shook with his angry words.

The camera fell as Kakashi was pushed roughly to the ground. It was left pointing at Sakumo's sandaled feet. Sakumo raised his voice into the most terrifying shout Sakura had ever heard. "How _dare _you speak to me that way?" he demanded. "You should show more _respect_, Kakashi!"

Kakashi began to protest, fear coloring his voice. "B-but Dad, I a-always have r-r-respected you—"

Sakumo's feet stepped forward and he cut Kakashi off with a loud _smack _of skin on skin. In the ringing silence that followed, Sakura could hear Sakumo muttering darkly. She saw his feet turn and move in the opposite direction as he walked away. The young boy on the ground tried to hide his whimpering.

"And shut that damn thing off!" Sakumo shouted from down the hall. "It's a waste of…" His feet stopped and his voice trailed off. She heard Kakashi scramble to his feet as Sakumo walked back and crouched in front of him. His voice was calmer, dead of emotion. His words began as a command, but he changed it halfway to a question. "Do not… Could you not show this to your sensei?"

"Yes, Father," Kakashi mumbled. There was silence. Birds could be heard chirping outside above the steady hum of the cicadas.

"I'm sorry, Kakashi." Sakumo's raspy whisper was so quiet the camera barely picked it up. Kakashi said nothing in response to the apology, and Sakumo turned the camera off.

Sakura watched the static on the screen intently, waiting to see if there was more. Eventually, the screen turned blue to signal the end of the tape. Sakura deflated a little into her couch, releasing some of the tension in her muscles. She slid off the couch and hit 'stop' and then 'rewind' on the VCR before straightening up and going to the kitchen.

While fixing herself a sandwich, she contemplated what she had just seen. She didn't feel as shaken or dirty as when she saw Rin dying on tape; rather, she felt cold. The look in Sakumo's eyes kept coming back to haunt her. She had seen that look before in troubled patients, and it had never been a good sign. _I wonder what it means…?_

"_I've been living alone in this apartment since I was nine years old…"_

"_Hatake Kakashi. Eight years old last September."_

Sakura frowned. Between the time this tape was filmed and the time Kakashi moved into his apartment, Sakumo must have died. Although she reasoned with herself that it could have been on the field (it _was _a war, she remembered) or even of sickness (_like his wife_), a sinking feeling in her stomach told her that it was probably suicide. When she tried to doubt this assumption, the image of Sakumo's deadened expression and those _eyes _— already so distant, so detached, as if he already wasn't really there — dragged itself into the forefront of her mind and reinforced the notion that Sakumo ended his own life.

Shaking a little, she mentally retraced what she had heard about Sakumo in an effort to fill in some of the blanks. She started with the earliest mention of him — Chiyou's outburst when she mistook Kakashi for his father — but couldn't find any new revelations there. Sakumo was a shinobi, after all, so it made sense that he would have made many enemies. The next she heard of Sakumo was when Tsunade commented that all the Hatakes were 'oblivious' and had been 'reminded of Sakumo' when she found Kakashi wounded at the Stone.

_Oblivious to what? _Sakura wondered. _And how did that remind her of Sakumo? _What was Kakashi being oblivious to? Was it his wounds? Sakura saw that as a possible connection, but something told her it went deeper. _What else could she have meant?_

After some more trial and error, Sakura thought she made the right inference. Tsunade and Sakumo must have known each other, and maybe — _maybe_ — Sakumo had been oblivious to the _concern of others_. _Yes_, she thought, _that must be it._ Tsunade had made the 'oblivious' remark after Kakashi sarcastically told her he'd rather die at the Stone than in a hospital. Tsunade, she thought, must have connected that with how Sakumo disregarded the feelings of others and committed suicide because Sakura didn't see how you could do something like that any other way. She figured that Tsunade could have been reminded of Sakumo by Kakashi at the Stone in a lot of different ways, but it probably boiled down to being scared. Kakashi was distracted enough by his visitation of the dead not to care about his own deteriorating physical condition, which, she thought, could be likened to the mental and physical deterioration that Sakumo eventually gave into.

This led Sakura to wonder what exactly caused his depression and eventual suicide— especially because he looked so happy and proud and strong in the family photo, whereas he looked emaciated and unhinged in the film taken around six years later. The death of his wife immediately came to mind, which would make a lot of sense. Grief was a common trigger for depression and motive for suicide. The evidence against this theory, though, was how Kakashi denied that the death had been hard on Sakumo. She dwelled on this for a bit, confused.

It dawned on her that maybe Kakashi had a flawed perspective on this— it would make sense that he would be particularly biased where such a sensitive subject is concerned. She wondered if perhaps it was a little narrow-minded of him to maintain the same beliefs he did when he was young and hurt, but she figured that maybe such a traumatic experience could be very difficult to understand and accept, let alone forgive someone for. After all, even Kakashi was only human and had his faults.

She sighed, sitting down in her chair and taking a weary bite out of her sandwich. She rather wished she hadn't seen (or heard) Sakumo abusing his son (for there was no other word for it), but she didn't feel as if she had _violated _something. Actually, she was glad that she was finally feeling more informed about the whole Sakumo situation.

It was cliché, but there was no other way to put it: the tapes were both a blessing ad a curse. Her eyes strayed to the window, and she watched the rain, which had picked up speed. She felt an inkling of remorse, but she pushed it away, feeling justified in wanting to find out more about Kakashi. After all, he was just so damn _mysterious_, and she craved a betting understanding of him. She finished up her sandwich and stood to put the tape away.

Sakura spent the rest of the day running errands. She had a hard time sleeping, feeling very cold again and distracted by the sound of the rain. Images of Sakumo and Kakashi floated across her subconscious, the former's shouts and the latter's whimpers casting an icy atmosphere in her dreams.


	8. Seven: Ramen

Sorry for the slight delay on this chapter. I've been rather busy, and I don't particularly like this chapter. Hopefully, though, you'll be able to enjoy this belated installment of 'Static'. Oh, speaking of belated things... Happy (late) birthday to the seventh Harry Potter book...! Can it really have been a whole year?

* * *

Although the sun was starting to come out, Konoha was still sopping wet. Trying her best to avoid puddles, Sakura slowly ascended the winding steps of Hokage Tower. She was thoroughly exhausted by the previous day's events; it felt as if several weeks had all been rolled up into one day. Her night had been practically sleepless, adding physical fatigue to the emotional. On top of that, she was in no rush to see Tsunade after their ultimately disastrous conversation the previous afternoon. _How could I have been so tactless?_ Sakura berated herself for the thousandth time. _What came over me?_ She could only hope that Shizune had managed to calm Tsunade, although Shizune herself was acting rather off yesterday, to.

Sighing, she entered the marginally warmer building. She was indifferent to the wet footprints she trailed down the carpeted hallway leading to the main office. She hesitated before knocking on the door, but she could hear Tsunade snoring and figured the Hokage was, more likely than not, hung over. Although a sleeping Tsunade could be just as dangerous as a conscious one, Sakura deemed it safe to knock.

Predictably, she heard an interrupted snort and some confused mumbling. This was followed by a pause. Tsunade was presumably collecting herself, straightening the stack of papers that had served as her makeshift pillow. Finally, Sakura was beckoned with a very disgruntled "Come in".

Sakura turned the knob, sucking in some breath (nervous despite her weariness) and entering the office. Tsunade was rubbing her cheek, muttering something. To her credit, she had tried to look alert, but she let her shoulders relax a fraction when she saw that it was Sakura. She grunted, and once Sakura was standing in front of her desk, she said, "Haruno, you look like shit."

Recognizing the bloodshot eyes and ugly complexion of a hung-over Tsunade, Sakura just nodded. Privately, she felt that the accusation was a bit rich. _A case of the pot calling the kettle black if I ever saw one._

Tsunade sighed, rubbing at her eyes. Without looking up, she pointed to a stack of papers. "Those detail the latest medical research from Suna," she grumpily explained. "I skimmed them for anything important last night. Nothing ground-breaking, naturally— just some minor stuff, but we need to read over it anyway."

_I'd better read it extra-carefully, since Tsunade must have been pretty wasted last night_, the cynical side of Sakura commented snidely. For the most part, though, she felt honored that Tsunade respected her enough to trust her with something so important as medical research that Tsunade herself would need to learn. No matter how many times she did this for her mentor, the novelty never wore off.

They worked in silence for some time. Finally, Tsunade finished off one of the enormous stacks of paper. This basically consisted of dividing them into two separate piles after reading them: documents to be submitted the Council for the go-ahead to give them the stamp of approval, and documents to be revised and re-submitted to the Council. Having cleared a significant portion of the morning's work, Tsunade leaned back in her chair and sighed. Sakura could feel her honey-colored gaze on the back of her head, but she kept her head down. She heard Tsunade open a drawer in her desk and dig around a little. Sakura heard her pull something out and shut the drawer before grunting, "Sakura."

Sakura looked up from her medical research. Her eyes dropped to a tiny photo album Tsunade was resting the pads of her manicured fingers on. She pushed it wordlessly towards Sakura. The younger medic's gaze flickered back up to Tsunade. Curiously, she said, "Shishou?"

Tsunade yawned, removing her hand from the worn leather cover. "You wanted to know about Hatake Sakumo, right?"

Sakura blinked, surprised at Tsunade's dramatic change of attitude toward the subject. She hadn't expected the topic of yesterday's conversation (if it could even be called that) to be brought up out of the blue. Most of all, she was shocked that Tsunade was offering her a _photo album._

Cautiously, Sakura took the album. Tsunade, having given her attention to a new stack to tackle, did not look up at Sakura as she waved her encouragement. "Go ahead, he'll be easy to pick out." Sakura cracked open the album and began to thumb through it. Different pictures of Tsunade and company filled the pages, spanning across childhood to early twenties. Most of the pictures were of Team Sandaime, which Sakura appreciated but had seen many of.

With Sakura skimming, Tsunade seemed more comfortable speaking. "I'd give you his file, but he died thirty years ago," she mentioned. "They'd have cleared it out by now." Just as she said that, Sakura found a picture with Sakumo in it. He and Jiraiya had their arms around each other's shoulders. They both wore grins, Jiraiya's wide and Sakumo's subdued. They were standing in front of the Ichiraku Ramen stand, which was adorned with a "Grand Opening" banner. They appeared to be in their late teens.

Sakura registered the difference here between the two other ways she had seen him— pictured with his family and spiraling towards suicide. Despite Jiraiya's obvious exuberance and the generally happiness of the situation, Sakumo didn't seem particularly giddy. Taking note of this, Sakura thought he must be a rather serious guy in general.

She noticed the label underneath the picture: "Brothers in Ramen". Staring wide-eyed between the faces of Jiraiya and Sakumo, she tentatively asked, "Were they actually brothers?"

Tsunade understood to whom she was referring. "No," she grunted. Her gaze was still resolutely fixed on her work; Sakura was beginning to think that it was intentional. The older woman paused before elaborating in a restricted voice. "People thought so all the time. They were just very close friends."

"Mm-hm." Sakura nodded. She continued to look through the pictures, albeit more slowly than before. Sakumo cropped up every now and then, usually paired with Jiraiya. Eventually, she came across one where he was holding hands with a black-haired woman. Sakura recognized her as Kakashi's mother.

In the photo, Sakumo was happier than Sakura had ever seen him pictured. His wife was wearing a faraway smile, her eyes hazy. Sakura judged that the lethargic look was just a result of how her face was structured. This feature reminded her very distinctly of Kakashi. A tree colored by autumn stood behind the smiling couple, and they both wore sweaters and scarves. Sakura's eyes dropped to the picture's label. _'Sakumo and Haruka Engaged'… Haruka, huh?_ Looking back at the picture, Sakura noticed the ring glittering on Haruka's hand, which was entwined with Sakumo's.

"_It must have been hard on your father."_

"_No."_

Sakura thought hard for a long moment before looking up. Her voice faltered as she said, "Tsunade?" Naturally, Tsunade grunted. Taking this as an invitation to continue, Sakura asked, "Did Sakumo and Haruka" — she worked her mind and mouth around this new name — "have any… _tension _before she died?"

This, finally, brought Tsunade's full attention to Sakura. She looked up, regarding her young protégé carefully for a little while. "How much do you know?"

Sakura thought for a minute before saying, "I know Haruka died of a disease when Kakashi was four and that Sakumo died a few years later."

Tsunade nodded, considering her answer. When she spoke, her measured tone oozed reluctance. "Haruka wasn't happy with some of Sakumo's… parenting methods."

Sakura acknowledged this with a nod, and a pregnant pause hung in the air. Tsunade broke it with a sigh, reaching for her bottle of _sake_. She took a swig, allowing some of the warm liquid to drip down her face. Licking it off her lips, she spoke more easily (although her words were clearly still guarded). "Sakumo and Haruka disagreed about Sakumo's… unique? Mm, more like controversial handling of Kakashi's childhood." She gave Sakura a loaded look, obviously expecting Sakura to fill in the blanks.

Feeling a little irked that she couldn't just get straight answers, she nodded and looked back at the photo album. She turned a few more pages, stopping briefly at an adorable one of Kakashi and Jiraiya, before coming to a very somber one. Everyone was dressed in black funeral attire. Sakura saw Jiraiya and Tsunade standing in front of a tombstone. There was a small and blurry form sitting in the background she identified as Kakashi; the hair was a dead giveaway, even with such poor quality. The rainbow glare on the camera indicated that it was an incredibly sunny day. The label read "Sakumo's Funeral" in messier writing than the rest, as if the writer's hand were shaking.

Sakura swallowed, staring at Jiraiya and Tsunade's backs; he had his arm around her shoulder. Without looking up, her eyes fixed on the gray of the tombstone, Sakura asked quietly, "Did Sakumo kill himself?"

She did not see Tsunade's facial reaction, but there seemed to be a very stunned pause before she heard Tsunade grunt and take another drink of her precious rice wine. Sakura listened to her gulp it down and looked up when she heard the gasp of breath that marked the end of the chug. Before her mouth could even start to form the question again, Tsunade grumbled, "Bad mission." Sakura waited for more, but after several minutes of silence (wherein Sakura was watching Tsunade idly twirl an ink brush, waiting for flecks of black ink to fly off), she accepted that that was all Tsunade was going to say on the subject.

Softly, she closed the book and placed it daintily on the desk. As she returned to her medical research, she heard Tsunade's not-quite-contained sigh as she, too, resumed her work. Sakura felt like she should maybe say something. She almost formed the words "Thank you", but ended up keeping quiet.

(…)

That night, Sakura walked into her apartment. After finishing up with medical reports, she had gone to help the medical researchers at the hospital file the new information. After being called to an imaginary surgery at the end of her shift, she came home pretty late. She was starting to feel a hole in her chest that was usually filled by Kakashi's presence, but tried not to think about it as she began to wind down. She went through the usual routine— dropping the bag at the door, un-strapping her sandals, taking off her headband… When she went to grab a late-night snack, she saw a sticky note on her fridge.

_Sakura—_

_A mission just came up that's supposed to take about a week, so I'll be gone for a day or two._

_Maybe when I get back we can go out to dinner again._

_ Kakashi_

_P.S. You should find a better place to hide your key._

Sakura shook her head and sighed, opening the fridge and taking out some Fruit on the Bottom strawberry yogurt. Her mind wandered idly as she stirred. She was pretty exhausted, so when she was finished with the yogurt she went right to bed, figuring that she could just take her shower in the morning.

As she lay in bed, she couldn't stop herself from going over the previous night— how he touched her and how her body reacted so naturally to him. She found herself really craving the feel of his body pressed against hers. Again, she sighed and shook her head. _You've gotten to bed without him almost every night of your life,_ she reminded herself. Grinning, she turned off the light and fell asleep.

(…)

Two days later at midday, the sky was cloudless. The blue was piercing in the ferocity of early winter. Sakura had just walked out of the hospital, still buttoning up her coat. She was humming softly to herself, noticing how the branches were almost completely bare and listening to the crunch of leaves beneath her feet. The day before, she had watched at little bit of the latest movie again— she only reviewed the beginning of the latter movie, from Kakashi's babbling to just before his outburst. She had been studying Sakumo, trying to fill in more than what she had already gleaned. She was, once again, feeling bad about what happened to him and wondering what exactly Tsunade had meant by 'controversial handling of Kakashi's childhood'— she wondered if Sakumo had always been an abusive father or if it was just his 'bad mission' that led him to physically harming his son.

Her face lit up and her muse died when she saw a very familiar slouch and shock of silver hair. Energetically she waved and called out, "Kakashi!"

He turned. She saw his one-eyed look of surprise crinkle into a smile as he waved a hand in greeting. They walked to meet each other, Sakura unable to contain her broad smile.

Standing in front of her now, Kakashi started rubbing his chin, eyeing her carefully. She raised her eyebrow, shifting her weight to her left foot and putting a hand on her hip. "Have you forgotten how I look already?"

He shook his head, letting his hand drop. "I just realized I haven't shaven since I left."

"What were you staring at me for, then?" she asked playfully. In the background, she was having a mental debate over whether stubble was a plus in his case.

"More interesting than the sky, I guess." He shrugged. "What are you out and about for?"

"It's my break at the hospital," she said, "and I was going to get lunch."

"I caught you just in time, then." He smiled. She smiled, too, and they started walking down the street together.

She noticed that he smelled very clean and more like cologne than usual. "When did you get back?"

Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe a couple hours ago…? I ran some errands and showered before coming to find you."

She punched his arm lightly. "I'm offended," she said, "to be third on your list."

He raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. "If you'd rather have me smelly and sweaty…"

Sakura's teasing smile faded quickly and she blushed. Pretending to be oblivious to the insinuation, he looked around, his eye following a leaf drifting to the ground. Timed a little too perfectly with Sakura's face's reversion to only a slight blush, Kakashi turned to look at her again. "Where to?"

She shrugged. "We could get some ramen or something." Kakashi sighed, but he took the turn towards Ichiraku anyway.

They reached the restaurant in a comfortable silence. Kakashi held the little piece of cloth out of the way for Sakura as she ducked inside, proceeding to take a seat to her left. Ayame came over to take their orders, her gaze lingering on Kakashi, before she hurried to the back to cook. Sakura remembered briefly to the picture of Jiraiya and Sakumo in front of the ramen stand on its opening day (smoothly blocking out the part of her subconscious telling her that that's why she offered to get ramen).

"How long has this place been open?" Her question was posed to no one in particular.

"As long as I've been alive…" Kakashi shrugged, knowing no more than she.

Teuchi, the old stand owner, had been washing a countertop. He looked up at Sakura's question. "I opened it over forty years ago on a sunny summer day," he said wistfully. Laughing, he continued, "I ran out of ingredients because two youngsters couldn't stop eating the ramen." Sakura smiled— she had a pretty good idea who these 'youngsters' were. She made a mental calculation that led her to assume that, were Sakumo alive, he'd be in his early sixties… right around Tsunade's age, which fit.

She spared a sideways glance Kakashi's way, interested in whether or not he'd have a reaction. He didn't seem to, already well into his bowl of ramen. Breaking apart her chopsticks and eyeing her bowl, she asked, "How was the mission?"

He grunted through his food in response; Sakura waited for him to swallow. "It was pretty routine. Naturally," he added with a quirk of the mouth, "it did not take as long as expected."

Sakura shook her head. "Why are you obsessed with getting missions done early?" she wondered aloud.

He shrugged. "It makes up for being late to everything else."

"You should work on achieving a balance," Sakura sighed. He merely shrugged again, returning to his ramen.

While Sakura ate at a normal pace, Kakashi and Teuchi struck up a conversation about _Icha Icha_, getting into deep analyses about the personality conflicts between the main and supporting characters. Listening, Sakura observed privately that someone who had no idea what they were talking about would think the two men were discussing some marvel of literature, not word porn.

"But you know," Teuchi said, "I think that the intimate scenes carry a lot of symbolism."

Kakashi nodded enthusiastically; Sakura had never seen him so excited. "Yes, yes, I agree completely," he said seriously. "One scene that struck me as particularly meaningful was Junko's façade of pleasure during her encounter with Masashi."

At this, Sakura couldn't help but snort into her ramen. _Façade of pleasure… yeah right… read: faked orgasm!_

The two men looked over at her as if just remembering that she was there. Sakura just shook her head at their scandalized expressions. "You two really need hobbies."

Teuchi held up his hands palms forward defensively. A rag still dripped from where it was resting on his splayed fingers. "I have lots of hobbies," he said. "I just like to pick up a good book now and then."

Deciding not to pick on the old guy, Sakura turned to Kakashi with an eyebrow raised expectantly. Kakashi wore a defeated look on his face, and his shoulders slumped more than usual. Sakura recognized the tactic.

"Don't pout at me," she warned.

He straightened up considerably. "I don't know what you're talking about," he denied. "I do _not _pout."

Teuchi laughed at Kakashi's ruffled expression. Kakashi shifted a little on his stool and leaned forward, elbow on the table with his chin resting in his hand.

"You have my sympathy," Teuchi said. "Most shinobi have trouble finding hobbies."

Kakashi spoke up in mild protest. "Shinobi just have a tendency to develop hobbies different from those of civilians, and are thus not recognized as hobbies."

Unconvinced, Teuchi crossed his arms. "Huh. Gimme and example."

Kakashi cupped his chin in between his thumb and index finger, tapping it thoughtfully. After a moment or two of contemplation, he said, "Gai hops sideways."

Sakura had to stifle a laugh— _Hopping sideways?_ Teuchi unfolded his arms and raised his hands defensively again. "Gai's different—"

Cutting him off with a shake of his head, Kakashi said, "Gai's just as much of a shinobi as I am."

Before Teuchi could deny that, Ayame chimed in. "What, exactly, is meant by 'hopping sideways'?"

Kakashi regarded her for a moment; Sakura's eyes followed his gaze to Ayame's beet red face. "Just what it sounds like."

Visibly flustered, Ayame sputtered, "It sounds like—"

Chuckling, Kakashi cut her off with a shake of the head. He sighed. "No, Gai actually hops from side to side in his spare time."

"Why?" Clearly, Ayame was still very confused.

Kakashi turned to Teuchi with satisfaction in his eye. "Point proven." Teuchi shook his head in defeat. Ayame wordlessly handed Kakashi and Sakura a free bowl of ramen each. Always a sucker for free food, Kakashi eagerly started eating his. Sakura followed suit with a little less gusto.

While they eat, Teuchi dropped into one of his muses, which men of his age are prone to. "You know, Kakashi-san," he said thoughtfully, "your friends in particular tend to have strange hobbies… Especially when you guys were teenagers."

Sakura could see a small smile tugging at the corners of Kakashi's mouth. He stopped eating for a moment to respond, however, and the mask went right back up. (Sakura didn't miss Ayame's disappointed sigh.) Kakashi seemed to bring out a certain side of Teuchi, for the older man continued wistfully, "I remember you used to get up to all sorts of shenanigans… And yeah, it reached a fever pitch at the point just before Asuma left the village."

Kakashi nodded (thoughtfully, Sakura thought). Teuchi continued, "Ah, those were sure the days… There were the skipping contests, and lots of stuff to do with flowers… flower inspection, flower identification, flower picking, flower arrangement… Yeesh, you kids certainly liked flowers…" He trailed off as Sakura coughed on her noodles. Kakashi thumped her on the back, and once her breathing had returned to normal, Teuchi's reminiscence resumed. "And— oh, yes! I remember one of my favorites… When your friend Asuma, you know, was in his late teens, just before he left, and he had that filming stage."

Kakashi nodded again (apathetically this time?). Heedless of the possible change of mood, Teuchi picked up where he had left off, fondness coloring his words. "The reason I mention those is that I was in one of those! Asuma filmed one on the history of the ramen stand—" He interrupted himself. "Hey, does Kurenai, bless her soul, still have any of those?"

Shaking his head, Kakashi said, "When Asuma came back, he took an oath to burn every last one."

This solemn statement brought about a short silence. Sakura couldn't help but be the one to blurt out, "Why?"

Without glancing her way, Kakashi shrugged. "It was part of 'renouncing his adolescent misdirection of the soul'… Asuma was almost certainly under the influence at the time, having been just recently re-introduced to society after spending a considerable amount of time living alone with monks."

Teuchi nodded sagely. "That's a pity."

Sakura had been listening to this vein of conversation intently, trying to fill in the holes in the story. She figured it was typical of Asuma not to follow up on his promise and typical of Kakashi to trust Asuma's drunken word.

At this point, Teuchi began to describe at length the documentary Asuma filmed about the ramen stand. His drawn-out recollection was halted only when Kakashi politely excused both himself and Sakura, leaving all of the money on the counter. He threw a smile Ayame's way before leaving, Sakura trailing behind him.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the stand, Kakashi sighed quietly. Sakura thought he sounded relieved. She elbowed him. "What was that sneaky smile about?"

Kakashi shook his head. "It was apologetic. I feel sorry for her having to listen to her father's rambling all day, and I sort of got him started."

"Naw," Sakura argued, "don't try to paint him as the only villain here. You were totally into your conversations."

With another shake of the head from Kakashi, they fell into a comfortable silence. Kakashi eventually broke this with another, heavier sigh.

Sakura looked up at him. "Hm?"

Dismissively, he shook his head. "It's just so weird… I hadn't thought about Asuma's tapes in such a long time, but in the past month they've come up twice."

Sakura judged that a nod would be least suspicious. She was also quite surprised that the conversation at the ramen stand had ended up moving in that direction. She shrugged. "I had just chalked it up to learning so much more about you in the past month."

He smiled. "Am I really that mysterious?"

"You wish." She rolled her eyes. He chuckled, and there was a little bit more silence. This time, a little bit of discomfort crept into the atmosphere— at least, for Sakura it did. Kakashi, of course, appeared as nonchalant as ever. Feeling an itch, Sakura deemed it her turn to break the silence. She started hesitantly, saying, "Actually, I did have a thing or two to ask you."

He slid his uncovered eye sideways to rest on her. She was walking on his left, which made it easier for him. He prompted her to continue with a "Hm?" She appreciated dryly that he was putting more enthusiasm into his curiosity than usual by looking at her _and_ giving a monosyllabic response. When she next spoke, she sounded a little surer of herself.

"Your father… what was he like?"

Kakashi's brow furrowed at her question. The gesture was not angry; he had fixed her with one of his piercing gazes and seemed to be thinking. His gaze skated from her to the sky as he slipped his hands further into his pockets. After a few more moments of silence, he said, "Strong, intelligent, determined…" He cleared his throat. "He was a hard worker and cared a lot about what he did and what he was protecting."

Sakura nodded. There was a moment's hesitant silence before she spoke. Her voice was quiet, but not timid— rather, even. "What happened to him?"

Kakashi shrugged. "He got carried away and eventually lost sight of what was important."

Sakura would have been frustrated with his vague answer if she hadn't already known, but as it were, she just nodded. Although she knew how Sakumo died, she felt like Kakashi should have the right to feel like she found out on his terms. "How did he die?"

A passing cloud was slowly covering the sun; Kakashi frowned at it. "Suicide."

Sakura made sure to put on her best surprised face. "Oh, gosh, Kakashi," she gasped. "I'm sorry…"

He shook his head at the cloud and turned to smile reassuringly at her. "It's okay to be curious."

(In the background of Sakura's mind, there was a flash of the last time he said that to her. It had been several days before in his apartment, when he had come out of the shower to find her clutching his father's sword. _The small smile he gave her didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's okay to be curious."_)

Suddenly, she felt almost dangerously emboldened by a combination of his encouraging words and the connection her brain just made. "Why?"

Kakashi's smile faded into a frown. This time, the crease in his forehead was from unhappiness rather than deep thought.

Seeing that he was unwilling to divulge more, she pressed him. She wanted to find out more about the 'bad mission', the abuse, the home and marital tension… anything to fuel her need for information. Taking a fistful of his sleeve in her hand, she asked, "Had there been something going on at home?"

It was clear through his rigid body language that Kakashi was considerably more uncomfortable now. He shot her a sideways glance before squinting at the cloud again. "Ah…"

This uneasiness communicated to Sakura just how comfortable he was. She realized this and relinquished her grip on his arm. She leaned up towards him on her tiptoes. "I'm sorry, Kashi." She whispered the words against his lips, capturing them in a kiss. Even as he kissed her back gently (relieved, she thought, just like the last time they were in a situation like this), she felt the nagging lack of fulfillment she had become accustomed to. As usual, she was a little irritated that she didn't find the information she was looking for.

They pulled apart and smiled at each other; Kakashi seemed oblivious to Sakura's mixed feelings. Sakura glanced automatically at her watch; her eyes bugged out as she realized the time.

"Ah… I'm late!" She gave Kakashi a quick squeeze and ran off towards the hospital.


	9. Eight: Apathy

Busy, busy, busy! Hopefully you like this chapter. It turns out this story isn't going to have as many chapters as I thought it would; the chapters are so much longer than the ones I would write for 'Painful Secrets', which threw off my estimate. I like it better this way, though. You don't have to wait as long for shorter stuff, hmm? Again, please enjoy this next chapter of 'Static'. Oh, and there's kind of a surprise next chapter.

* * *

Sakura was beginning to wonder if Tsunade was doing it on purpose. For the past three days, Kakashi had been gone on yet _another _S-rank mission. She had barely been able to spend any time with him since they had started dating— or, more specifically, since the Hokage had become privy. Because of the older woman's stealthy intervention, Sakura found herself walking home alone from Lee's twenty-fifth birthday party.

The party had been quite the affair; Gai had sung an opera's worth of "Happy Birthday"s in progressively higher keys until even Lee had urged him to stop. Absent of a date, Sakura had danced with just about every person at the party except Lee himself; even after years and years of rejection, he still seemed to believe Sakura was secretly lusting after him. She had humored him to a certain extent before excusing herself, pecking her friends on the cheek and slipping quietly out the door. Even several blocks away, she could still hear the raucous karaoke music. (She was glad to have escaped before Shino could take Naruto up on the singing challenge.)

While walking, Sakura marveled at Lee's age. _Twenty-five already… _Despite the notion being cliché, she truly felt that it was only yesterday that she had first met Lee at the chuunin exams. _Hmm… say, Kakashi was around twenty-five when he started teaching us, huh?_ She smiled a little. He had seemed so old then. When she was twelve, she couldn't even fathom what it would be like to be twenty-six. Looking back, however, she realized how young Kakashi really was.

She reached her turn but stopped at the corner, glancing down the other street; it eventually led to Kurenai's apartment. She felt an almost magnetic pull towards the place where she knew the videos were. Without giving thought to her actions, she turned left rather than right and marched towards the familiar building.

(…)

Forty minutes later, Sakura had successfully retrieved a tape from Kurenai's. She hadn't been able to see if the one she grabbed was the last, as she had had to focus on borrowing a legitimate movie from an actually present Kurenai. After some light chatter, she had come back home. She showered before having a light dinner; her stomach was fluttering with anticipation, so she had a hard time getting any food down. Having changed into her pajamas, she was now sitting on the couch as the tape rewound.

She was admittedly a little nervous, unsure of what this tape could hold. After all, there had thus far been a mix of poignant and harmless. Was she being naïve by watching yet another? Her slight misgivings were stopped dead as the tape began, fading into the black of her subconscious as if doubts had never flitted across her mind.

All that could at first be made out was Asuma's breathing. It was labored, as if it took a monumental effort just to inhale. There was some half-hearted cursing as the camera focused, eventually capturing a shaky and obviously unprofessional image of what Sakura recognized as Kakashi's apartment building.

From behind the camera, Asuma sighed heavily. "Well," he said, "this is not my first attempt, and not my first choice, either, but it's at least as likely to work as some of the other things I could try."

The camera started moving forward, the image shaking unstably as Asuma moved across uneven ground. "I thought filming might…" His voice trailed off into a mumble. Sakura could only make out the word "reflection". Silently, Asuma reached Kakashi's door. The jokes accompanying the same trip in the first movie were absent here. Sakura judged that some time had passed and something serious had happened.

This time, Asuma knocked. He waited awhile before finally, some noises were heard from within and the door opened with a creak. Sakura estimated that the Kakashi standing in the doorway was around seventeen. His hair was very disheveled; his spiky bangs drooped so that they covered his Sharingan eye. He was wearing his sleeveless black ANBU undershirt. The way the material clung to his chest was in contrast with how his baggy jounin pants hung off him. His mask was in place, but his good eye was red-rimmed and underlined by deep purple circles.

He leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest and regarding Asuma coolly. Raising an eyebrow, he looked directly into the camera before fixing his glare on a point slightly to his left, where Asuma was standing. After a drawn-out moment of silence, he sighed. "What do you want?"

Asuma jostled the camera a little. "Mind if I come in?"

Kakashi hesitated before shrugging and walking back into his apartment, saying something about a waste of tape. Asuma followed, closing the door behind him. From a casual sweep of the apartment, Sakura saw that it was pretty messy; unwashed clothes littered the floor and various items were strewn amidst the laundry. "Exhibit A," Asuma muttered.

The camera focused back on Kakashi. He was visible behind the bathroom door, which had been left ajar. Asuma approached, pushing the door open. Kakashi was revealed to be applying shaving cream to his face. Virtually unmoving, the camera remained on him as he shaved his face. As he was finishing up, Asuma zoomed the camera up on the razor in Kakashi's hand. "Exhibit B…"

Kakashi's voice came from off screen. "What are you doing?" Asuma zoomed out to Kakashi's face. He had an eyebrow raised, his cheeks a little pink.

"It's a good thing you shave," Asuma remarked loudly. "A gray moustache would make you look even more like an old man than you already do."

The atmosphere seemed to portray that Asuma was suspecting this to elicit a response out of Kakashi, like a laugh or a denial, but Kakashi just smiled; Sakura was disturbed by how hollow it was. The image shook as Asuma turned to follow Kakashi out of the bathroom. He murmured something that sounded a lot like "therapy".

Kakashi flopped down on the couch and looked up at Asuma, his bare face humorless and weary. His skin wrinkled more than it should have as he creased his forehead in a frown. Seeming troubled, he looked at Asuma like that for some time. Eventually, he spoke. "What are you wasting your film on today, exactly?"

Ignoring the question, Asuma asked, "How have you been doing these days?"

Kakashi looked as if he almost snorted but couldn't muster the energy. Instead, he just shrugged. "I've been staying alive, at least." (Sakura thought that he maybe sounded a little sour, even disappointed.)

"Hmm…" This response apparently didn't sit well with Kakashi, who raised a suspicious eyebrow. Asuma must have shifted his weight onto the other foot, because the camera dipped to the side before stabilizing again.

"You've been taking a lot more S-ranks lately," he commented. Kakashi's unchanging expression prompted him to elaborate. "I've been a little concerned."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Of course, you're right to be concerned." His voice dripped with sarcasm. "It's highly unusual for ANBU to take dangerous missions."

Asuma did not show any indication of amusement, and Kakashi frowned. "Lighten up."

Asuma snorted. "Lighten up?" he repeated incredulously. "I dunno, I think you're the one who ought to be lightening up."

Kakashi looked genuinely surprised. "_Me_?" Something seemed off about his expression, though, and it took Sakura a moment to realize that it was not genuine enough — or rather, _too _genuine — to be believable.'

"Yeah," Asuma said. "You haven't been the same since…"

"Since Rin got violated," Kakashi finished for him. His voice couldn't seem to decide if it should sound nonchalant or fierce.

There was a short pause. "I was going to say 'died'."

Kakashi shrugged. He must have thought that Asuma was looking at him strangely, because he sounded almost irritatedly defiant when he spoke. "I'm not afraid of the word or something— I just think 'violated' more accurately sums up what happened to her."

Instead of responding to Kakashi's unnaturally comfortable words, Asuma focused the camera on one of Kakashi's arms. Sakura didn't see anything unusual about it, and she suddenly wondered if Asuma was looking for self-inflicted wounds there.

"Cut it out." It sounded like Kakashi was trying to make his voice sound sharp (and maybe even authoritative), but he was too tired to pull it off convincingly.

Asuma obliged, zooming back out to Kakashi's face. "Nice choice of words," he muttered.

Kakashi looked vaguely unamused. As he observed the camera with an expression that was not quite deadened but still struck Sakura as extraordinarily similar to Sakumo's in the previous tape, he seemed to realize something. Both of his eyes widened, although the Sharingan was still mostly concealed by his wilting silver locks. He recovered almost immediately, though, his face settling into a small frown of annoyance.

Anger making its way into his voice more than any other "emotion" he'd shown so far, he said, "You're wasting your time. This doesn't work."

"It worked for Kurenai," Asuma objected mildly.

Kakashi smiled sardonically. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm not so enamored by your presence behind the camera that I'll forget about my problems and skip into your arms."

Asuma adopted a hurt tone, ignoring the cold twist to the remark. "Don't you find me at all attractive?"

Kakashi shrugged. It looked like his short-lived sense of humor had faded into apathy again. "My problems aren't worth forgetting." He punctuated this with an entirely fake, eye-crinkling smile. Sakura recognized the grin she had come to bitterly resent. She noticed that this smile didn't seem as complete, as fine-tuned as the ones he faked today. Sakura couldn't be sure whether it had to do with his mask being off or just that he hadn't worked it down to an art yet, but the fraud was much more easily identified than she was accustomed to. The pain hiding behind the false cheer transformed it into more of a grimace.

Asuma repeated his words. "Not worth forgetting?" A pause. "Huh."

Again, Kakashi's observation was a bit too careful (_Rome wasn't built in a day)_ before he yawned and stretched his arms above his head. He scratched a familiar spot on the back of his neck. He spoke innocently enough, but it was clear that he was hinting that Asuma should leave. "I'm late for a very important meeting with your favorite person in the world."

Asuma groaned sympathetically. "How long will you be gone this time?"

Kakashi shrugged as he pulled on his vest, zipping it up before sitting down to strap on his boots. (Sakura thought she'd never be able to look at the zipper on an ANBU vest he same way again.) "I think they're sending me to Sand." He made a face as he said it, which disappeared as he tugged his mask up to rest snugly on the bridge of his nose.

"The sun will be good for you." Apparently, he put a little too much meaning behind his words for Kakashi's comfort; Kakashi grunted as he straightened up, and his default lazy look and monosyllabic response suggested that he was no longer feeling as congenial as he was just moments ago. With a half-hearted wave, he exited via the window. The camera followed him as he turned onto a roof and out of sight.

As the little blur disappeared, Asuma clucked knowingly. "Hokage Tower is in the opposite direction of the Memorial Stone, Kakashi," he said quietly. "But maybe you don't care what I think anymore?" There was heavy static as he sighed. "Oh well, it's not as if I expected to accomplish anything after all…" He began to whistle, moving the camera around slowly and taking in the disorganized apartment. Sakura noticed on the kitchen table several bottles of what she assumed to be medicine sitting next to a framed photograph.

With a final, baleful whistled note, Asuma shut the camera off.

Sakura exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Running a hand through her hair, she sank into the couch. She contemplated the blue screen for a while, frowning in thought. She was stuck on something she couldn't place— Kakashi reminded her of someone there, how frustratingly uncaring he was coming across as… She thought for a while, but she couldn't seem to identify where she had seen someone having to put so much effort into feeling, putting on the faces he thought he should after calculating the situation.

In a moment, it hit her— Sai, who had to study out of books to learn how to interact properly with other humans. Granted, Kakashi wasn't at that level during the movie, but the connection still makes her feel uneasy. She got off of the couch and crouched in front of the television. As she manually rewound the tape she watched all the images move backwards at enhanced speeds. Although she was happy to have seen the video, she felt like she was still missing something. She thought that part of it was because she didn't really learn anymore from this tape— she didn't even feel the same elation to see Kakashi or the appreciation of seeing him show more emotion because he was so… deadened. It also angered her to see those fake smiles on someone so young; it was one thing for an adult to act that way, but a teenager?

She shook her head. The tape was done rewinding and she ejected it, putting it where she kept the rest of them. She then went to her bedroom, mulling over what she had seen. Now that she had got her disturbing connection out of the way, she was able to think more about the movie as a whole. Lying in bed, she decided that Kakashi was depressed. _Rin must have died… but he called it "violated"…_ But Rin had died in the hospital, hadn't she? Of "mission-related causes", according to the official record.

Sakura found herself returning to the mystery of Rin's death, which she had all but forgotten in the midst of finding out so much about Sakumo. She tried to put "violated" and "mission-related causes" together. She could certainly think of methods of decease that fell into either category, but it just didn't make any sense to put "mission-related causes" down for the cause of death. Most deaths in Konoha were related to mission assignments, but official medical records were supposed to be specific about what actually brought about the person's demise… and _"violated"_? Sakura couldn't make it match up. It didn't help that she watched Rin die and knew she didn't die on the spot or something; rather, she died in a hospital bed without any gruesome external injury.

She rolled over on the bed, firmly trying to shut out all the conspiracy theories and outlandish explanations swirling around in her mind. She was too tired for that and had a long day of work ahead of her at the hospital. She conjured the thought of Kakashi, wrapping his warm and strong arms around her, and fell asleep.

(…)

Weeks passed, and November gave way into December. Sakura and Kakashi had met together a few times infrequently; gradually, Sakura found herself talking less and less, listening and above all, watching instead. Sometimes she would completely tune out his voice, instead focusing on the movements of his face and body. She had re-watched the "therapy" tape, as she called it, several times more, but got frustrated when she couldn't get any more out of it.

Today, Sakura's main excitement was that there was snow in the forecast. She was sitting on a bench outside the hospital, eating her lunch and looking hopefully up at the sky.

There was suddenly a whoosh of air beside her— startled, she turned to her right and saw Kakashi sitting there. He was slouching forward, his legs open; his right elbow was resting just above his respective knee, and his left arm was raised in a lazy salute.

Feeling what had come to be an unusual burst of energy, Sakura replaced her instinctive smile with feigned anger. "Don't scare me like that," she scolded.

He gave her a winning smile, evident even behind the mask. "How have you been?"

She shrugged, returning most of her attention to her lunch. "Things have been pretty uneventful," she answered. "They've just been working me to the bone at the hospital… How was your mission?" She couldn't remember how long it was supposed to be.

"All right," he said. "It was more taxing than the last one and also kind of lonely, since it was a solo."

Sakura chewed on that for a few seconds; something felt off, and it wasn't until a moment or two later that she realized she'd never heard him say that he was lonely before. Feeling suddenly more interested, she turned to look at him fully for the first time since he appeared on the bench. He had been casually observing a stray dog prowling past. As she was on his blind side, he had to fully turn his head to look at her. He must have thought she looked sad or worried, for he smiled reassuringly.

She thought he might have started to say something, but she couldn't be sure; she was too focused on connecting the Kakashi sitting in front of her right now to the teenager she had seen in the most recent video. The word "lonely" seemed to have triggered a fresh wave of sympathy for him. She contemplated and appreciated how much he had been through, a mini-movie playing in the back of her mind. Images flickered across her mind: Kakashi standing proudly between his parents; a teenage Kakashi kissing Rin; his head down on Rin's deathbed; passionately making love to Sakura; reclining on the bench, with one arm draped casually around the beck of the bench, the other resting on his thigh.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Kakashi squinting at her, looking a little confused. Breaking out of her reverie, she returned his quizzical stare, equally confused.

He blinked once before speaking with the air of one repeating himself. "When do you get off work today?"

Wearily, she sighed. "It might not be until late."

"That's okay," Kakashi said, sensing her melancholy. "I'll cook you dinner."

Sakura looked at him incredulously. "Can you really cook?" Her tone was skeptical.

He nodded. "A bachelor who can't afford to eat often learns to cook for himself," he said wisely. Sakura nodded vaguely, her mind already on the report she had to painstakingly fill out when she got back to work. She stood, gathering up the remains of her lunch and balling them into a crumpled mass before tossing the wrinkled paper bag in the aluminum trash can next to the bench. Kakashi, too, rose to his feet. Tugging down his mask, he leaned over to kiss her. She kissed back happily, but not as enthusiastically as she had in the past.

Smiling, Kakashi waved at her. She gave him a hurried wave in return before rushing off to the hospital, running late again.

(…)

That evening, Sakura ascended the steps to Kakashi's apartment, observing the chipped paint of the stairwell wall and the fluorescent lighting's unflattering glow. She came to Kakashi's door and knocked; he answered it quickly, opening the door and exposing Sakura to the tantalizing smell of food just out of the oven. He was wearing his jounin uniform sans vest and mask. Upon recognizing Sakura, he grinned and stepped aside for her. "Hey."

Sakura smiled and entered, shrugging off her coat. When Kakashi offered to take it from her she obliged, handing it to him and inhaling deeply.

"The food smells good," she told him as he hung her coat in the closet.

"Thanks." He shut the door soundlessly and the two sauntered into the kitchen. They ate, exchanging light conversation. The food he had prepared probably would not have won any prizes, but Sakura still thought it was delicious. As they dined, Sakura found herself letting Kakashi do most of the talking. Up until recently, this was very unusual for them; he was usually so quiet, keeping most of his opinions to himself, whereas she had been talkative, wearing her heart on her sleeve… She would be making an effort, but she was so enthralled by just watching him talk, his mouth moving in time with his voice, that she was significantly distracted from what was actually being said. She was just fascinated with listening to him open up to her, although it was not as if he were spouting ground-breaking revelations— he was just having (or at least attempting to have) a normal conversation with his girlfriend. She relished his presence, his manner, his tone, and the expressions that reflected the depth of his emotions by betraying very little. On the reverse side, it did irk her that he was so guarded— but maybe she was just imagining that? Maybe she was so distracted that she—

Her train of thought blurred as a hand was waved in front of her face. She blinked and recovered slightly, staring blankly at a puzzled Kakashi, who settled back into his chair upon realizing that she was capable of registering his presence. _(If only he knew.)_

"What, did I zone out or something?" she asked.

He smiled and chuckled a little. "Yeah," he said, "I was just starting to get worried that you just had a religious vision or something." She shook her head and smiled. Tapping his finger idly on the table, he said, "So… I was asking you about movies?" For some reason Sakura thought it came out as a question, but that didn't really make sense.

It took a moment for "movies" to click in Sakura's brain. Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered fleetingly if he could actually be referring to _her _movies — _his _movies — but upon acknowledging the benign expression on his face, she realized (feeling stupid and paranoid) that, of course, he had probably just casually asked her about movies she had seen recently.

She sighed, shrugging and saying off-handedly, "I've been pretty busy… I haven't been watching many movies recently."

He looked confused, and she wondered if— _Be reasonable, _she chided. She wondered absently when she had become so paranoid (knowing the answer full well, of course).

"What?" she asked, realizing she sounded defensive.

He observed her silently for a moment before speaking. "You just told me you'd been watching a lot of movies lately."

Genuinely surprised, she said, "Did I?"

He must have thought she sounded skeptical, for he nodded and supplied, "I asked you and you nodded and told me 'Yeah, lots'." He didn't sound suspicious or particularly interested; after all, it's not as if it was a big deal, but Sakura still blushed profusely.

Feeling relieved in spite of her embarrassment, she blinked. "Oh, well, I've watched a few here or there."

"Any good ones?"

"Yeah," she said, "I've seen some very… enlightening presentations." She figured she'd feel guilty if she told him an outright lie.

He nodded. "Could I peruse your collection some time?"

Her heartbeat sped up a little. "Nah," she said, "I hardly have any movies myself— when I'm feeling to cheap to rent, I borrow from Kurenai."

Nodding, he let his gaze fall to his nearly empty plate. Sakura, too, looked down, immediately worrying if she said too much. Trying to casually recover, she looked up again and smiled. "The food was good— I'm mildly impressed by your culinary prowess."

Kakashi returned her smile— she thought he looked happier than she had seen him in a while. "Thank you," he said dryly, standing to clear the table. Sakura help him, and they spent several minutes cleaning.

Upon the completion of their tasks, Kakashi was leaning against the counter, his hands in his pockets; Sakura was standing in the open archway to the kitchen. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, her eyes roamed around the kitchen. They fell on the table Kakashi had just skimmed with a sponge, and she thought back to the image of the pills and the photograph sitting there, twenty whole years ago.

"Kakashi…" She said his name, tugging up the intonation on the last syllable. She finally looked at his face, recognizing somewhere in the back of her mind that he had probably been looking at her the entire time. Right now, it was hard for her to place the emotions flickering across his eye (even when his face was exposed, his lone black eye was still so expressive). Was he curious? Hopeful? Cautious? She combed her mind for the question she was sure was just on the tip of her tongue, but she must have forgotten it while searching his eyes. Instead, she said, "Thanks again for the meal… I had a good time." For some reason, she felt the need to assure him of this.

He smiled and pushed himself off the counter, crossing the short distance between them and kissing her. She kissed back a little, thrilled to just be on the receiving end of an emotion like his passion. Struck with a sudden, invigorating idea, she pushed back into the kiss and tried consciously pulling him out, luring him from the kitchen and into the living room. Sensing her motive, he took over and steered her towards his bedroom, and for the second time they made love.

This tryst was definitely lacking something the first possessed in dizzily overwhelming quantities. Kakashi's passion was certainly present as he worked his way in and around every contour, curve, and crevice of Sakura's body, but Sakura took a much more passive role than before. Unlike her energetic premiere performance, her heart hardly seemed to be in an act that she would normally invest so much in. For the most part, she was just going through the motions: clutching at his lower back, releasing heavy gasps— some genuine, some calculated. It felt sometimes that Kakashi's thrusts carried a sense of urgency, his kisses desperation; she attributed this to her own half-hearted participation. She climaxed, of course, because her developing apathy was no match for his undeniable talent, but even that — the ultimate explosion of sensory pleasure — was diminished by her removal from the experience. She was feeling him and breathing him and _making love to him_, but she detached herself so that she could appreciate him — the fluid movements, the contorted expressions, the heady scent of his cologne being magnified to the point of intoxication — in the way she felt would give her the most satisfaction. (And she did not let herself even consider how any feeling could be possibly more fulfilling than that of him coming inside of her.)

When they were finished and he had pulled himself out of her, rolling onto his back, she watched dazedly (still rooted more in the theory of the present than in the reality) as his chest rose and fell with each heavy breath. Her eyes wandered lazily around his room as the pace of his breathing slowly leveled, her eye catching the moonlight glinting off of one of the framed photographs sitting on the windowsill.

Her mind moved to Rin as her eyes slid back to Kakashi. She wondered if the two of them ever shared such an intimate moment of this one. (Sakura did not take into account that although this instant had the potential to be touching, the intimacy was not fully realized thanks to her analytical detachment.) Kakashi had once told her that he and Rin had never gotten far enough to fathom a future together, but had they gotten far enough to have sex? They had certainly come close, as Sakura saw in the first video.

Sakura watched him as he regarded the ceiling lazily; he eventually slid his gaze sideways, eyeing her with his Sharingan. She was sure it was not intentional — after all, he couldn't help having only one ordinary eye — but it still succeeded in sending an unpleasant shiver down her spine. She wished she could see the thoughts churning behind the red and black veil.

He looked exhausted. After letting the Sharingan's gaze rest on Sakura for a while, Kakashi let his eyelids droop in what Sakura thought was most likely an effort to stem the constant flow of escaping energy. His clear fatigue did not stop the question tumbling, unheeded, out of Sakura's mouth.

"Did you and Rin ever do this?"

At first, it appeared that he hadn't heard her, but Sakura knew that this, if anything, was proof that he did; that was just the way he worked. She felt him shift a little; she suspected that his inner tranquility had been shaken by the question, and he was trying to set his mind at ease by re-adjusting his physical comfort. His efforts seemed to fail, however; he was lying on his side and opened both of his eyes, looking at Sakura with something that looked like it could have been _longing_. A piece of Sakura felt confused at his expression and regretful of asking the question, but a larger and more significant part of her reveled in the experience of seeing such a gut-wrenching emotion locked in his contrasting eyes. Somehow, perversely, this trumped the pleasure of the intercourse they just partook in.

He looked at her for a moment before answering shortly.

"No."

She nodded, storing this revealing nugget of information for further dissection. Several seconds later, she recognized something cold, almost like a draft— but none of Kakashi's windows were open (it was December, after all) and she wondered if the chill she was feeling was figurative. Was Kakashi so irritated by her question that he suddenly felt it was appropriate to treat her frigidly?

Bristling, Sakura began to extricate herself from the blankets tangled around her limbs. _Two can play at this game. _Kakashi's eyes — previously half-lidded in what Sakura had convinced herself was cool disenchantment — widened in shock. She started pulling on her clothes in a rush; Kakashi jerked upright, throwing the blanket off of himself and practically jumping into his boxers as he bounced to his feet.

"Wait, Sakura!" he said. "What's wrong, what happened?"

Buttoning up her shirt, she threw him a quick glance over her shoulder. In a voice contradicting her out-of-the-blue and hurried actions, she said, "I have a lot of reports that I left for after dinner; Tsunade needs them in by the crack of dawn."

She did not give Kakashi time to respond, swiftly leaving the apartment. Fumbling with her hands, she hurriedly formed the hand signs needed to disappear in an angry hurricane of pink petals.

She arrived somewhere in between her apartment and his in the middle of a vaguely familiar street. A wind danced passed her and she hugged herself; she left her coat hanging in Kakashi's closet. She started trudging through the street, trying to alleviate her shivers by rubbing her hands up and down her arms. It occurred to her that it never _did _snow today. _But it's certainly cold enough_, she thought with more than a hint of bitterness.

As she made her way home, her mind dwelled on the cold— not just what she was feeling now, but also the icy feeling that prompted her to run out on Kakashi with such a lame excuse. She grudgingly admitted that it was rather rash and immature, but it never once occurred to her that the metaphorical draft in the bedroom was not coming from Kakashi.


	10. Nine: Doubt and Debate

This was one of the most difficult chapters to write, as it was the only one I added to make people happy. The original version was much shorter, totaling a little over 2200 words, but I felt that people might be dissatisfied if some sort of reaction from Kakashi were excluded. For this reason, I discarded my plan to include this in the final chapter and gave it its own. Hopefully, people won't be disappointed by its contents! Personally, I still don't like it much... oh well. I'm publishing this early because I want to wash my hands of the affair... this one has been giving me trouble for quite some time! There will be one more chapter after this and an epilogue. Aah! (Oh, and the surprise is the main character of the chapter!)

* * *

Kakashi was walking with his hands stuffed into his pockets. Having worked maintaining outward calm down to a science he cast the illusion of tranquil indifference via his droopy eye and face, masked both literally and figuratively. Only the slump of his shoulders was not staged (although they did add nicely to the overall effect). He chanced a glance at the sky: overcast, but without snow. _Is that normal? _He struggled to remember the date. _It must be December, _he decided, although a more specific answer was beyond him.

He sighed, counting backwards in his head. He hadn't been to Kurenai's apartment in a long time. In truth, he kind of avoided the place. Kurenai was one of his closest friends and he was welcome in her home without appointment, but all of the memories gathered and festered in the seemingly stagnant air of her apartment. Even though there was evidence of her single parenthood strewn everywhere, for some reason he still felt almost… claustrophobic in there, surrounded on all sides by the past. Upon reflection, this seemed absurd because Kurenai was much more grounded than he, but… Details aside, she was sadly a person he could experience only in small doses.

As he took a left turn, he sighed again. He really wasn't sure what to make of how Sakura had been acting recently. Occasionally he would see hints of the old Sakura, playful and sarcastic, but for the most part, she was becoming so… well, disenchanted, as if her heart was not in it. She left after having sex — sex lacking the spark and mutual passion of their first encounter — as disinterested and distracted as if they had just had a dull conversation over lunch. (Which, incidentally, up until a few weeks ago, they never, ever had.) Interacting with someone as sharp and charmingly emotional as Sakura had been the highlight of his day and a guaranteed way to cheery him up, but that had stopped.

At first he thought she was sick or that there was some anniversary he had missed (which normally wouldn't happen, given his talent at remembering unhappy occasions). Slowly, however, during his infrequent reprieves from missions, it became clear that Sakura wasn't going to get over this bout of melancholy in a matter of days. Naturally, Kakashi had started developing other suspicions.

After hours spent crouched in the limbs of a tree in some obscure country, lending one half of his attention to keeping an eye out for enemies and the other for working out the complications of his personal life, Kakashi finally made a tentative link between Sakura's increasing interest with his personal history (as it seemed to be all she could talk about these days) and the slow deterioration of their relationship— for no matter which angle Kakashi looked at the situation from, it was painfully clear that something was wrong. It was a pretty grand speculation, but the way she was acting — rarely raising her voice above a bored monotone and _frowning _all the time — she couldn't honestly be happy, and Kakashi was almost certain he knew why.

He couldn't remember the first time she asked about the movies— maybe not asked at all, but hey had come up and he had let the chance discussion slip from his mind. It held little relevance at first, but it kept coming up, and she was always asking him _questions_, focusing more on what had happened to him before than what was happening to him — _to them_ — now. It wasn't as if he resented the questions; it was only natural that she should be curious, as he was a fairly enigmatic person and they _were _starting a relationship together. It was just that they started to build up, and he wasn't always comfortable answering about certain things. He intended to fill her in at his own pace, on his own terms— and the Sakura he knew, the Sakura he cared so much about and regarded with an affectionate adoration, would have accepted this, not calculated questions as a careful interrogator does, an eye always out for some new snippet, trying to disguise her disappointment when his answers were less than satisfactory.

Even after making the connection, Kakashi spent a lot of his energy trying to deny it. He had mocked himself, presenting logical alternatives as means of a counterargument. Despite the possible options, gut instinct led him to believe that this was the problem: Sakura's insatiable thirst for knowledge _about _him seemed to trump her desire to be _with _him. He wasn't sure if the movies had been directly involved. Although at Ichiraku he pretended to be confident that they had been taken out of the picture long ago, he had actually been questioning their survival for some time. On the other hand, they could just be a topic of conversation so attuned to Sakura's obsession that she loved scrounging for every detail of those, too.

And truly, he still had some doubts about his theory until she came over for dinner the night before. She was by far the worst he had ever seen her. While they were eating, he found himself actually struggling to make conversation with Sakura, grasping at straws before lapsing into awkward silences, something he hadn't experienced with her since she was in her early teens. And when they had sex, he _knew _she faked— if not her orgasm, then more than a few of those moans, which made his pumps all the harder and his kisses all the messier because, he realized (as they lay beside each other and he observed her almost _bored _expression with his Sharingan eye— the eye that was supposed to reveal all the answers to him), he was terribly, desperately, _achingly _afraid of losing her. And of all things, she had chosen to punctuate his mounting worries with a question — another motherfucking _question_ — about _Rin_. Despite his misgivings, his shock, and his fear, he answered her— and then she had politely said her good-byes, gathered her clothes, and left. _Never _had that happened to Kakashi, and after mulling it over (while his body, on autopilot, experienced difficulties figuring out where he was supposed to stick his legs into the pants), he decided that she had gotten what she came there for and saw no further use for him at the moment.

As he navigated through the winding roads of Konoha, however, he grew irritated with himself for jumping to that conclusion. _This could be bigger than you, Kakashi_, he argued with himself. _Don't get conceited._

Another piece of him countered. _Why _else _would she have given you such a less-than-cordial good-bye?_

He shook his head (imperceptibly to passerby, but monumentally inside his head, where it shook up all of his contradictory and unhappy thoughts). _This_, he reminded himself, _is exactly why I'm going to Kurenai's._ Sitting and talking with Kurenai could be hard— he always felt like they formed an incomplete triangle, the hypotenuse that once bonded the two legs with a common purpose (a common friendship) having been disconnected. Still, she was someone he could confide in and had developed quite the skill set when it came to dealing with relationships.

_Besides, _he thought as he rounded a final turn, _she's the one with the tapes._

(…)

Kakashi stood in the entryway to Kurenai's apartment. He had just been informed that Kurenai was not at home and was now looking at Akio, surveying the child's bored features. Kakashi was reminded strongly of Asuma; Akio was the spitting image of him, from the spiky black hair to the extra appendage hanging idly from between his lips.

He glanced around the apartment behind Akio; it was actually pretty clean. Applauding Kurenai mentally, he returned his gaze to the boy. Leaning forward a bit, he squinted. "How old are you now?"

Akio sighed exasperatedly. "Uncle Kakashi," he said, "you ask me that every time you see me… couldn't you bother to keep track?"

Kakashi smiled, leaning back into his usual slouch. He watched Akio as an expectant pause hung in the air. Finally, Akio gave in.

"Nine."

Grinning, Kakashi said, "Now, that wasn't too hard, was it, Aki-kun?"

Akio scowled, eliciting a chuckle out of Kakashi. "So… how's the Academy going?"

Shrugging, Akio answered, "It's okay, but some of my teachers are really annoying. They don't" — here, his expression hardened and his lollipop bounced in time with his agitated words — "allow candy."

Kakashi nodded. "It just serves as a distraction."

Akio rolled his eyes. "You sound exactly like my mom," he said. He raised his voice and imitated his mother: "In _my _day, we were lucky enough to get candy once a year on Christmas!" (Privately, Kakashi felt that the shrill voice Akio had adopted was hardly accurate; he had always thought that Kurenai had a nice, deep voice.)

Mocking a pout, Kakashi said, "I hope my voice isn't _that _effeminate."

"Uncle Kakashi, you always use such big words." He rolled his eyes again. "I don't even know what that means."

Kakashi shook his head. "You're mother's right, though," he said. "I went years at a time without candy and hadn't even tasted a lollipop until I was _ten._"

Mortified, Akio accidentally let the lollipop fall from his gaping mouth where it landed on the carpet. Kakashi was sure he heard a primal, mournful moan as Akio crouched to pick up his fallen treasure. The boy straightened up, holding his wounded friend in front of his nose; Kakashi watched his eyebrows curl up on the insides in despair as he noticed all of the filth contaminating the lollipop's shiny red head.

As the boy dejectedly discarded the ruined candy into a nearby wastebasket, Kakashi sighed, hoping to sound sympathetic. "That's a shame."

"Yeah," Akio grumbled. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, staring glumly at the ground. "It was my last one."

"Ah…" Kakashi thought for a moment. "If you're good, Uncle Kakashi just might get you some more."

Akio's head snapped up, a spark of hope gleaming in his eye. Seeing this, Kakashi feigned reconsideration. "Well… Then again, candy is a real treat; I wouldn't want to _spoil _you…"

Face falling briefly, Akio quickly schooled his features into a cocky sort of mischief. Kakashi raised an eyebrow, intrigued; he had been expecting anger or despair. Akio crossed his arms. "How about a deal?"

_Typical of a Sarutobi,_ Kakashi thought with a hint of nostalgia. _Wants to make a compromise out of everything… or at least flaunt his own assets._

Kakashi mimicked his actions, folding his arms across his chest. His demeanor served as an invitation for Akio to present his proposition.

"Well, you know," Akio began, "my mother has one or two girlfriends you might be acquainted with…" He pretended to think. Snapping his fingers, he said, "That pink-haired girl, Sakura."

Kakashi kept himself from stiffening, but his muscles did tense a little. His expression remained smooth, however, prompting Akio to continue.

Casual as you please, Akio said, "Sakura's been coming around more lately, wanting to borrow some of my mother's _movies_." Kakashi did not like the emphasis he put on this word. He did not betray any outward feelings of excitement, but he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins as his heart began beating a tattoo against his chest.

Akio continued, "I thought it was _awfully _suspicious how she was digging around in the closet like that… and she how she pretended she wasn't when she heard me coming." It was becoming harder and harder for Kakashi to keep a straight face— he was sure this was what he had been suspecting. "And I just _had _to go see what she was searching for— and I was very surprised when I came across some videos labeled with some very familiar names."

He finished, looking expectantly at Kakashi with his mouth twitching in a poorly concealed smirk. Kakashi did not usually like to stoop to bribery, but this was beyond the level most of his encounters of this kind went; this was far more than just idle gossip. He cupped his chin between his thumb and forefinger, thinking for a moment before offering, "I'll buy you four entire bags of lollipops."

Akio's lip curled in a triumphant smile. "I carry no obligations to a party that did not upkeep its end of a bargain, so you've got yourself a deal." He held out his hand and shook Kakashi's firmly before returning his hands to his pockets.

They exhaled simultaneously— Kakashi in anticipation and Akio in preparation. "Okay," he said, "Sakura had been in my mom's closet digging around for videos— I got suspicious, searched Mom's closet myself, and found some old tapes of my dad's… and some of them had your name on them."

Kakashi felt something like a deadened bolt shift inside of him, clicking into place as his suspicions were confirmed. It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't just imagining the metallic _click_— behind him, someone was opening the door. He stepped out of the way and Kurenai was revealed, her eyebrows slightly raised.

"Hey Akitchan," she said, smiling at her son. "Hello, Kakashi." She nodded at the latter and closed the door behind herself. "Excuse me." She walked past Kakashi and into her kitchen to put her grocery bags down. Akio disappeared into his own room as Kakashi followed Kurenai.

"To what do I owe this surprise visit?" she asked.

Quietly, Kakashi said, "We need to discuss your movie collection."

Kurenai blinked but was otherwise unfazed, hands on her hips; she was a professional, after all. There was a very long moment of silence, during which the kitchen clock's ticks were conspicuously loud. Kakashi could see that Kurenai was doing what she did best: calculating.

Finally, after staring into his black eye for what could have been an eternity in Kakashi's uncharacteristic impatience, Kurenai spoke.

"What happened?"

Sighing heavily, Kakashi slumped into her kitchen chair, pushing up his headband to massage his scarred eye. Kurenai pulled up a chair next to him, waiting patiently for him to speak. "So she has seen them."

"Mm-hm."

_Shit._

After a moment of stillness he sighed, leaning back in his chair and pushing his bangs out of his face. "Akio told me as much," he said, "but I guess that part of me hoped…" His voice trailed off. He could tell that Kurenai wanted to instinctively put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but she refrained from doing so.

"So," Kakashi exhaled, "he didn't burn them?"

"Did you think he had?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I always thought it didn't matter," he explained. "I assumed I'd never see or hear of them again, as Asuma's bluff would be called if they were to resurface."

Kurenai ran a hand through her hair. "Asuma wasn't able to bring himself to do it."

Kakashi nodded. "I'm not surprised."

There was silence while Kakashi struggled to remember what Asuma caught on film. It had all been so long ago… twenty years, at least. His most distinct memory was Asuma coming to his apartment after Rin died, trying to employ some sort of "cinema therapy", as he later described it. Rather than helpful, Kakashi had found the experience invasive and even painful. He couldn't remember exactly what had been said, but whatever it was would have given Sakura insight to a much darker side of him.

_Is that contributing to her cold shoulder? _he wondered. _Is she wary that the teenager in a deep state of depression is still lurking beneath the surface?_ He was, of course, because Kakashi retained pieces of every person he had been, but there was no danger of that Kakashi emerging. No, Kakashi had moved on— he was dating Sakura now, wasn't he? Didn't that serve as evidence that he had at least come to terms with Rin's death? He shook his head, returning his attention to Kurenai.

"So what has she seen?" He posed the question in a way meant to encourage conversation. He hoped his efforts to be casual about this weren't too transparent to a trained eye like Kurenai's, but he was fairly confident he was more practiced than she. "There's the 'therapy' tape," he said, casting his gaze around the room. "And one where I'm with Rin…"

His voice fell with his mouth into a frown. He remembered, now, the time when Asuma barged into his apartment uninvited while he and Rin were making out on the couch. He had been very angry that Asuma had interrupted because it had almost been a very important step in his and Rin's relationship; they had almost had sex, coming closer than they ever had (or ever would again). His frown deepened as he considered the possible effect this could have had on Sakura. Would seeing him passionately entangled with another woman somehow trigger jealousy?

_No,_ he argued with himself. _That is absurd._ Sakura was simply not that juvenile. Befuddled by all of these variables, he redirected his frown to Kurenai.

"Other than that," he said, "and maybe a lazy afternoon or two with the guys, there's nothing else, right?"

He watched Kurenai's reaction, waiting for her nod of confirmation, but was surprised and disturbed to see a flicker of contradiction in her crimson eyes. She immediately rearranged her features into passive acceptance, but while she was a kunoichi, she was not as accomplished an actress as Kakashi was an actor, and he knew the signs of a lie when he saw them.

Kurenai nodded. "Yeah, that's it." Seeing through her façade of innocence, Kakashi leaned forward and fixed her with a hard stare. Kurenai seemed to realize that trying to lie was a waste of their time, so she bit her lip, appearing to be thinking hard. Perched on the edge of his seat, Kakashi waited while she chewed on her words.

Eventually, she said, "Asuma… added films that were not his own to his collection." Kakashi's eyes narrowed fractionally. Hesitantly, she continued. "He may have taken a tape he thought would answer some of his questions…"

Growing agitated in his impatience and mounting sense of dread, he growled, "What, Kurenai, what did he take?"

There was a pause as the atmosphere teetered dangerously on a paper-thin line, to be tipped either way by Kurenai's next words. She let out a deep, shuddering breath. "He stole from the hospital, Kakashi— he took Rin's death."

_Shit._

The ticking of the clock, so loud in his ears as he waited for Kurenai's answer, seemed to stop. An image of Rin lying on the hospital bed, drenched with sweat as her body tried to flush out its toxins, flashed into his mind. _Sakura saw that, _he thought. _Sakura watched Rin die._ She had seen one of the most horrific moments of his life captured on _film._

_What the hell was Asuma thinking?!_

Kurenai tried to soften the harsh blow of the truth. Reaching out an arm, she said his name softly. "Kakashi."

Kakashi drew his hand back; it hovered over hers as he wondered, at a loss, what to do with it, before he stood up and slid it into his pocket. Fighting the tremble threatening to tear his words into pieces, he asked, "When did Sakura get her hands on those tapes?" _How long has Sakura been in my presence and compared me to the hysterical teenager depicted in that tape? How long as she been learning bits and pieces of my life by which all further encounters are affected?_

Kurenai swallowed back the shake in her voice. "I think Sakura got the first in early November and has been 'borrowing' them since."

"_I've seen some very… enlightening presentations."_ Sakura's words from the night before rang in his ears. Mentally, he traced Sakura's behavior back to early November— and, with an unpleasant lurch of the stomach, he realized that mid-November was when they started dating. She had come on Rin's birthday (_God, how bad is it?_) to the Memorial Stone—

He rose to his feet in one unsteady movement, his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum. He moved to leave very quickly, but as he was about to reach for the doorknob, he stopped and turned to face Kurenai again. She was still sitting at the table, watching him glumly.

"Thank you," he said quietly, but it was enough; she managed a small smile in return, and he left.

(…)

Darting from rooftop to rooftop, he tried to keep his thoughts from racing.

_I shouldn't be that surprised she's seen the tapes_, he tried to tell himself. _After all, hadn't I already come to that conclusion?_

This feeble argument was cast angrily aside as a bigger part of him retorted, _It's not Asuma's tapes that have me so shaken up— it's the _documentation _of Rin's _death_, and the fact that Sakura has _seen_ it._ He was having a hard time blocking out the sound of birds chirping— the noise he already associated with death because of the Chidori, but especially so with Rin's because of the last thing he said to her.

"_Look, Rin… Can't you see the birds?"_

He tried to imagine Sakura sitting on her couch, watching the scene from the angle of the security camera. A shiver ran through his body, but he steadied himself so as not to slip and fall off the roof.

Landing catlike in a familiar clearing, he straightened up and walked towards the dark stone monument. Crouching in front of the Memorial, he ran his fingers along two carved names: Uchiha Obito and Namikaze Minato. Although he knew it was not there, he couldn't help but scan the surface for "Kurumi Rin" out of habit. With the usual angry clench of his stomach, he did not find it there.

Sighing, he stood up, ignoring the cracking of his joints. He untied the knot of his headband, taking it by the metal protector and stuffing it into his pocket. He blinked both eyes open so that Obito could see, too, allowing the Sharingan to swirl with excitement.

As his eye calmed down, he sighed again. "What am I going to do about this one?"

He remembered when he was sitting here eating breakfast, celebrating Rin's birthday at the place her name ought to have been etched. Sakura had come to him then looking horrible, her eyes red and puffy. He had wondered what was wrong; had she seen one of the tapes? What if she hadn't been crying for herself? What if she had been crying for him?

"Does she pity me?" he asked the Stone. _Is our relationship built on pity love?_ An angry gust of wind blew past him; at first, he felt it was echoing his own anger with the idea, but then he wondered if, perhaps, Obito and Sensei and Rin were trying to tell him something?

After a moment of thought he discarded his earlier speculation. Even if pity was what brought her to the Memorial Stone, he knew that something had started developing between them long before the tapes came into play. Their connection was incontrovertibly genuine, regardless of her recent actions.

He exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "Can we fix it, Rin?" he asked. "Can Sakura and I go back to the way we were?"

"_Well, what do you want to happen?"_ He could almost hear Obito asking him the question, see him crossing his arms and staring pointedly at Kakashi.

"Ah…" Kakashi searched his mind for the answer. What _did _he want to happen?

The ache from before crept into his chest, gripping his heart and squeezing unpleasantly. Reminding him of what he was risking, it impelled him to answer. "I don't want to lose her."

"_What are you going to do?"_ He heard his sensei throw his own question back at him; it reminded him of being a child faced with a difficult training scenario. Minato would only deflect his questions, forcing Kakashi to make his own decisions.

He sighed, considering the possible courses of action. He could confront her immediately, taking an aggressive approach to contrast her frustratingly aloof attitude. But no, anger and intimidation were not the right ways to handle this. _Perhaps I should give her some time?_

_Time, _another side of him argued, _is what is part of the problem. The two of you hardly see each other, and the infrequency probably contributes significantly to her craving of information._

_But spending time with her doesn't seem to help,_ he defended. He pinched the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes in an effort to think clearly. He had to be pragmatic; he couldn't afford to get caught up in fights with himself. Through the cacophony of his thoughts, a clear, calm voice asked, _"Do you love her?"_

He opened his eyes and looked at the trees, their bare limbs caught in the wind's slow dance, and contemplated Rin's question. He did not think of the new Sakura, who only showed up with her icy indifference from time to time. Instead he focused on the Sakura he had been attracted to for months and known for years, her cheeks flushed with laughter, punching him lightly on the shoulder and stealing a kiss.

"Mmm…" he said, "I think I do."

He cocked his head to the side and observed the position of the sun. _Sakura and I will have to talk later,_ he decided. He had just remembered that he was supposed to have reported to Tsunade's office three hours earlier. As usual, he had let time get away from him. He granted the Sharingan one more look around before he tied his headband, tilting it to conceal the red eye. Yawning, he formed the right hand seals and disappeared in a cloud of leaves and smoke.


	11. Ten: Epiphany

Ah, here is the last one. It is the shortest of the chapters (excepting the prologue and the epilogue to follow), but I stuck with what I wanted and I present it to you now. I could have added stuff on, but... I didn't. Hopefully all of the readers and reviewers who have kindly stuck with me throughout this summer affair will not be disappointed! I have no regrets, though, so that's good. Ah, and if this chapter is not as sober (a word a reviewer word that I just loved) as the previous one, forgive me! But Sakura is much more wont to melodrama, dontchathink? (Sorry, my Midwesterner is showing.) I'm crossing my fingers that you agree! I hope it's not too short! Ah!

A note before reading: It is important to remember that neither Sakura nor Kakashi are always entirely correct. For example, here in the first paragraph Sakura thinks Rin's name is on the monument without even bothering to check.

* * *

The next afternoon found Sakura pacing back and forth in her living room. When she had gotten home from Kakashi's the night before last, she re-watched the movies twice each, beginning to end and then over again. She had then turned in late for a reckless night of sleep. She had unsettling dreams involving chipped paintings and quiet sobbing. In an effort to block out these confusing images, she had worked hard at the hospital, crashing into her bed upon her return home. The dreams had still plagued her, however, so she took the day off and spent the morning practicing her taijutsu at the old training grounds. The Memorial Stone had loomed over her, a single name burning its polished gaze onto her back. She had tried to stomach a lunch but failed pretty pathetically.

Her gaze kept darting to the blank television before jumping to whichever wall she was walking towards. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally, she could stand it no longer and collapsed onto her couch. Fiddling with her remote, she accidentally hit 'power' twice; with a _thwup _sound, rainbow colors blossomed from the center of the screen. She pressed 'power' again and a moment later, a frozen image blinked onto the screen. Kakashi stood in the foreground with Rin a blur in the back. He was glaring from behind a raised arm, which was haphazardly covering the lower half of his face. Rin's outline was pretty fuzzy as she was caught smoothing out her shirt. Her face was just a beet-red blur framed by shoulder-length brown hair.

Sakura had stopped this tape just before the end— probably because she wanted to pretend that in the morning, watching the end of the first tape for a third time would yield some new information. Her finger rested on the 'play' button, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to press it. She told herself that it was because she knew that she had already dissected these movies and that it was doubtful she'd find anything more in this one than she already had. After an instant of hesitation, she hit 'stop' on the remote and then 'power'.

She stood up so quickly that she nearly lost balance, but her determination steadied her as she strode to the door. She moved to grab her coat, but found that its hook was empty. A small panic started amassing inside of her as she wracked her brains to remember why her coat wouldn't be there. Being interrupted in the middle of an adrenaline trip had disoriented her.

"_Here, let me take your coat for you."_

_Ah… _she realized. _I left it at Kakashi's._ She shook it off and grabbed a lighter jacket, zipping it up with one hand as she locked the door behind her with the other. She hurried out of the building and into the snow, which must have started after she came in from her morning training. Despite the icy bite of the air and the wet clumps of snow falling softly but steadily around her, she plowed forward in a controlled frenzy. By the time she had reached her destination, the snow had already accumulated nearly a foot.

Hugging herself for warmth, she stepped up to the doorstep and gripped the doorknob so hard she feared for an instant that it might crumble in her fingers— but the thought was fleeting and within moments she had already entered the building and darted up half the stairs.

As she neared the apartment, she prayed that she'd be greeted by Akio rather than Kurenai. Breathless, she rapped her knuckles on the door. For a few agonizing seconds, there was no response; her heart skipped a beat as she heard someone moving from within.

She contained a sigh of relief when she saw that the boy had opened the door. "Hello, Akio," she breathed.

"Hi." The boy frowned. "Mom went out shopping."

_Perfect. _"Okay," she said. "Could I just look through your mom's movies again?" She threw in a knowing smile in an attempt to pacify him.

Issuing a noise of assent, he moved aside to let her pass. She thought she heard him ask something about a 'promise' and 'lollipops'; she threw a distracted "Mm-hm" over her shoulder before disappearing into Kurenai's room. She closed the door behind her and went straight for the closet, falling to her hands and knees and searching for the familiar box of movies. Everything seemed to be switched around; after a minute or two, she came across the box. Just as she started scrambling through its contents, a light clicked on behind her.

She couldn't even try to mask the guilt on her face as she looked up to meet the cool glare of Kurenai. The older woman was giving off an aura of dangerous anger, her arms crossed across her chest.

Sakura rose clumsily to her feet, a thousand lies and questions running through her mind. "I think I left something behind here," she started saying, "from when I was helping you clean your apartment back in November—"

Kurenai cut her off abruptly, her words sharp and unforgiving. "He knows."

Sakura's voice died immediately; her lips clamped shut and her eyes widened.

Kurenai allowed a moment for her words to start to sink in before continuing coldly. "After the little stunt you pulled with Kakashi he came here, where Akio told him everything."

A bubble of anger managed to work its way through the blanket of shock. It acted as a trigger to send Sakura's numb mind into motion again. She opened her mouth — to do what, she didn't know — but Kurenai cut her off again, coarsely this time. "Kakashi has been getting worried about you."

Sakura mustered up enough nerve to shoot back "Why?" with as much anger as she could. She knew she should sound confused, but she was feeling more embarrassed about being found out (by Kurenai _and _Kakashi) than anything.

Kurenai's crimson eyes narrowed. "You've been growing so distant," she said. "Not just with Kakashi, but with everyone else in your life."

Bristling, Sakura began to churn out a counterargument. "How would you know?" she demanded. "I've been very busy with the hospital, and Kakashi's hardly ever home—"

Kurenai overpowered her without even having to raise her voice. "The tapes you 'borrow'," she said icily, "are just feeding an addiction that's eating away at you, robbing you of your personality."

"Those are very pretty words," Sakura snapped, "but all I want is information— I'm just trying to find out some things about a very private man! And it's not like I expected in the first place that there would be _documented accounts _of his girlfriend's death and his father's abuse!"

Kurenai fought back, patience draining from her tone. "Of course in the beginning you would have no way of knowing— your curiosity was perfectly natural, but by now you've come to expect emotional and vulnerable moments caught on tape!"

"Why do the tapes even exist anymore?" Sakura shouted back. "I thought he was supposed to have burned them!"

Eyes narrowing further, Kurenai answered. "When Asuma came back to the village after living with the guardians for a few years, he swore in front of his friends that he would burn all of the tapes, but when we came home that night he couldn't bring himself to do it."

Sakura snorted derisively. "What about the tapes that weren't his?" she asked, anger turning her voice ugly. "He didn't even film the two worst in the bunch!"

Sakura's breaths came in pants as the expectancy and unspoken accusations simmered between them. Kurenai inhaled once before saying, "Asuma salvaged the tape of Kakashi as a little kid when they were clearing the Fourth's things out of his office to make room for the Third to move back in." She paused before adding, "Asuma was suspicious about Rin's death, so he stole the hospital tape that had captured it."

"I would've been suspicious too," Sakura said. She seemed to have shed some of her animosity. "Rin's death is the main mystery driving me."

Despite Sakura's more congenial tone, Kurenai appeared to grow very upset at these words— it was possible that Sakura's frankness was what irked her most. "Did ever occur to you," she said coolly, "that going to such great lengths to find out how your boyfriend's ex died is kind of morbid?"

"I have every right to be curious!" Sakura snapped loudly; her indignation had returned. "And Kakashi doesn't tell me anything unless I ask!"

"Did you ever even give him the chance?" Her calm exterior infuriated Sakura further.

"Of course I did," she said, her voice shaking. "We've been friends for years and—"

"But Kakashi doesn't just lend that information out to anyone," Kurenai interjected. "Not even his close friends— the only reason people like me and Asuma ever knew anything is that we were _there_. Most of what anyone knows about Kakashi comes from a source other than him."

Chagrined, Sakura sputtered, "It's different because Kakashi and I have always been so close—"

Kurenai shook her head. "Sometimes that can make it harder for Kakashi," she said. "He doesn't hand out anecdotes on a whim or gush all of his secrets after a tender moment— it can be frustrating, I understand, but emotionally, Kakashi moves at a very slow pace… Once bitten, twice shy." She added the last bit as almost a quiet afterthought.

Sakura took a few steadying breaths. "Please," she said evenly, "all I ever wanted was to know more about Kakashi and the girl he once loved— if that means resorting to arguably drastic measures, then so be it."

Kurenai scowled. "Fine," she spat. "If you need to know so badly that you're willing to jeopardize your relationship with your best friend and lover in exchange for information you'd find out in good time anyway, I'll tell you."

A great bubble of excitement burst inside of Sakura. _I'm finally going to find out what happened to Rin!_ She was nearly overwhelmed by her excitement, but she did notice how much Kurenai was shaking. It looked as if Kurenai might think this was against her better judgment, but Sakura thought that perhaps she didn't want Kakashi to have to do it, so she was taking the burden upon herself.

"There was a mission," Kurenai began. "Rin and her team were assigned to escort an 'important political figure', as he was described." She paused, frowning at the anger that had slipped into her voice. Sakura could almost see her mind working as Kurenai forced herself to adopt a businesslike tone. "In actuality, he was an agent of Danzou sent as part of a test Danzou was doing of Konoha's current capabilities."

It sounded just like something that crotchety old man would have done. Angered at being denied the position of Fifth Hokage after the Fourth passed away, it made sense that he would be bitter enough to toy with the system.

"On his instructions, the agent fought and killed two members of the team, leaving Rin and one other man alive. He made sure to show them both an important document he had 'stolen' before running off. Both Rin and her teammate were seriously injured. Rin did her best to heal the other man, but she had hardly any energy left for her own wounds. Determined to retrieve the scroll, they pursued him."

Here, Kurenai seemed to lose her balance; she had to grip the edge of the door to keep herself steady. "He raped her," she hissed; she could no longer keep the ire out of her voice. "He injected her with a foreign poison and its Konoha-made antidote— Not only was Danzou trying to gauge the efficiency of the squads, but he was also mocking Konoha's medical program." Her voice hitched and her eyes glistened with tears as she forced herself to keep speaking. "The agent brought Rin and her unconscious teammate back to Danzou, who relayed the situation to the Third. He was outraged, but Danzou had already proven that the antidote was ineffective, so there was nothing more for him to do than put her in the hospital to die." Her voice was barely above an angry whisper now. "Danzou was punished and forbidden from doing such a thing again, but he still had enough influence to insure that his folly would not be identifiable in the medical records."

"What about Kakashi?" Sakura could not stop the question from spilling out.

Kurenai's eyes flashed up angrily. "He came home from his mission only an hour after she did," she answered. "The Third informed him that she was dying of poisoning in the hospital, and so he ran to be with her." There was a pause as Kurenai recovered, straightening up. "Afterward, when he was asking the Hokage for the details, Sarutobi told him the circumstances. He went from grieving and confused to bitter and jaded… which is probably what you saw in those damn movies."

_Wow…_ Sakura experienced mild awe as she put all of the pieces together. It was like having the answer to a complicated puzzle finally revealed; she felt a sense of fulfillment, but also disappointment.

As Sakura processed the new information, Kurenai adopted a tone of voice that suggested she couldn't decide whether she should be pleading or authoritative. Her words came out as a watery demand.

"Now that you know," she said, "you should return the tapes."

Before any rational side of Sakura had time to consider the request, Sakura underwent a miniature explosion of outrage. Visibly stiffening, she said firmly, "I refuse."

"But Sakura—"

"_No._"

Despite Kurenai's attempts to dissuade her, Sakura did not budge. "I have more use for them," she said. "I'll actually watch them, whereas in your possession they'll just sit in your closet and gather dust."

"No," Kurenai said emphatically. "Unless Kakashi wants them — which I know he won't — they're going to be burned as they were always supposed to be."

Sakura laughed dismissively. "Well, now I'm definitely not going to hand them over." She made a move to push past Kurenai but was blocked. Snarling, Sakura staggered backwards, her hands forming seals. Kurenai reached out to grab her arm, but Sakura disappeared and Kurenai was left grasping at floating petals.

(…)

Sakura stormed into her apartment, fuming. Without pausing to think, she headed straight for the couch. She couldn't even remember which movie was in the TV, but she knew there was one. Hitting 'stop' and then 'rewind', she sat in a silence interrupted only by the whirring of the tape as it rewound. By the time the VCR clicked she had already pressed down on the 'play' button with unnecessary force.

She was greeted with the familiar opening of the first movie. Eagerly she listened to Asuma's narration as it began, automatically starting to dissect his words. Her thoughts jumped to inferences she had already made as she put things together in exactly the same order she always had. The only new information was how Rin had died, but it was hardly relevant here. Still, Sakura took comfort in what she had already figured out.

When he finished, Sakura paused the tape. _I know so much more now,_ she thought. _How much have I actually found out?_

"_Long ago, when Kakashi was but a wee boy, his mother happened upon a funny mushroom and ate it. Unfortunately, this resulted in her eventual invisibility._

When Kakashi was four, Haruka had died of a disease that she had possibly contracted from ingestion of a poisonous substance.

"_Shortly afterwards, Kakashi was pushed into a deep, deep hole with pointy things in it and is still in it to this day— he just doesn't know it yet."_

Sakura had to think on that one for a moment before reaching a conclusion: Kakashi was forced into the shinobi system at too young of an age. Her heart thumped wildly as she pieced together these deductions, some of which (like this one) were newly realized.

"_Not much happened until a big tree chopped itself down and the sun turned off."_

She remembered back to her original idea that the tree represented Konoha, but as she considered the way young Kakashi spoke of his father and the effect his death clearly had on him, she reformed her hypothesis. In actuality, it had probably referred to Sakumo's suicide. _'The sun turned off…'_ Perhaps the shadow of his father's death and disgrace cast darkness upon Kakashi's entire world.

"_He couldn't see in the dark, so he tripped and broke his brain."_

Excited now, Sakura jumped to put these two phrases together. Somehow, the figurative darkness that had descended upon Kakashi led to him making a mistake ("tripping") that messed with his head ("broke his brain"). She even went so far as to speculate that being unable to _see _in the dark was an allusion to his Sharingan eye. _Maybe he screwed up and got the eye from that Obito kid— on the mission that was mentioned in Rin's file._

"_A surprising fact about Kakashi is that he is a picky eater. He is, however, developing a taste for milk.__"_

She was not sure about this one; could picky eating mean that he was choosy about friends? Relationships? She recalled the suggestive tone of Asuma's voice when he had said that; she also remembered Kakashi saying that his friends made fun of him for thinking milk was sweet. What was milk meant to symbolize? What was sweet in Kakashi's life?

_Rin, of course. _The milk must stand for Kakashi's developing feelings for Rin.

"_Regardless of the maturity of his taste buds, however, he hates tempura." _

She was on a roll— however, when she reached the tempura, she was stumped. There were a lot of things Kakashi hated, but she couldn't connect a single one to tempura. Wanting to gain insight, she tapped a button and the tape resumed. She watched it with a sharp eye, hoping to catch something she had missed before.

Suddenly, in the second before Kakashi and Rin registered that they had a visitor and were caught up in their private moment of passion, Sakura's very core shook as she was struck by a flood of powerful emotion. Bearing witness to that one stolen moment, it hit Sakura like a crushing tidal wave. For a few short weeks, she _had that _with Kakashi— that beautiful connection undisturbed by any outside force, but unlike the relationship Asuma had caught on tape, Sakura and Kakashi had cracked from within.

Occasionally, Sakura had felt twitches of guilt or doubt, but now, for the first time, she fully realized exactly what she had been doing— wrapping herself up in her endless quest for more information. Images began to flash through her mind at a dizzying rate, twisting into a collage that settled at the base of Sakura's throat, choking her and bringing tears to her eyes— Rin's face, smiling and bushing and dying; Kakashi, pouting and frowning and whimpering; Sakumo, fingers entwined with his fiancée's and eyes, overwhelmingly cold; and snippets of her own behavior over the past two months, cataloguing her progression (or regression) from spirited young woman to obsessive deadbeat. Her stomach twisted into a knot as she recalled in particular the last time they had had sex (the last time she'd seen him). She had been so focused on his fucking _angst _that she didn't recognize what she was doing to him by doing almost nothing at all.

She thought back with disgust to the assumptions she had made about him. She had thought he was trapped in the past to the point where he held a grudge against a man who had died thirty years before, or that he would disregard the feelings of people close to him enough to take the same path as his father. She had been _wrong _to think so poorly of him, even when those things might be true, because truly, although over the past several weeks she had learned of many isolated or loosely connected events, she had no real grasp of the context— there was still so much she didn't know about him.

And, she grasped with a numbing sense of clarity, _she didn't want to know._ Maybe someday, but certainly not now— only when Kakashi chose to divulge things to her, if he was still willing after the complete ass she had made of herself.

Feeling as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she rose to her feet. The tape had continued of its own accord.

"Tell me, Hatake Kakashi… what is your deepest, _darkest _secret?"

She watched the rest of the exchange with teary-eyed amusement before the tape cut to static for what she recognized was the final time; for she knew as well as Kurenai did that Kakashi would not want to watch these, that he had let himself believe they had been destroyed for a reason.

Sakura raised a hand to wipe the tears now spilling from her eyes, but she was smiling.

"_Kakashi, are you _positive _tempura holds no special meaning to you?"_

"_Yes. I assure you, I _just don't like _tempura."_

--

--

--

And she realized that tempura didn't mean a damn thing after all.


	12. Epilogue

I suppose that I must apologize in advance for the brevity of the epilogue, but it is what it is. I do hope you're not all _terribly_ disappointed, but this has always been the ending. Thank you all so very much for reviewing or putting me or my story on alert, but above all reading. My summer has been great, and this has definitely contributed. Hopefully you won't feel the need to throw things at me!

* * *

Epilogue

The next day, Sakura ascended the steps to Kurenai's apartment, a plastic bag hitting her thigh rhythmically as she moved. Reaching the door, she knocked; a few moments later, she was greeted by a familiar young boy, complete with trademark lollipop dangling from his mouth. Before Sakura could even ask, he said, "She's out."

There was a pause.

"Are you here for the tapes again?"

"Nope," Sakura answered. "I actually came to make a delivery."

Akio's eyes darted to the bag in Sakura's hand before returning to her face, and they stood facing each other in silence. Akio put particular emphasis on a prolonged suck of his lollipop, prompting Sakura to put her hands on her hips. The contents of the bags strained against the plastic as they slid with the movement.

She feigned annoyance. "So, whatever happened to our deal?"

Smacking his lips loudly around the lollipop, Akio said, "You hadn't been keeping your end of the bargain, so I capitalized on my opportunities."

"So your prize was more important than your promise?"

"I could say the same to you."

She raised an eyebrow at this sharp response. _How old _is _this kid?_

A smile curled Akio's stained lips. "Where candy is concerned, I give my loyalty to the highest bidder."

Making a noise of reluctant defeat, Sakura said, "Here." She handed him the bag.

"Lollipops?"

"Not quite." Sakura gave him the ghost of a wink. "Say hi to your mom for me." As Akio peeked into the bag, she closed the door and left.

(…)

The night before, Sakura had dreamed.

_Sakura was walking through a meadow. She glanced casually at the flowers; wild and colorful, they spread, devoid of a pattern, across the endless, grassy landscape. Squinting, Sakura peered into the distance. She could just make out a girl bending over and picking some._

_She started moving towards the girl, beginning in a curious walk but progressing into a run. The girl, however, seemed only to be getting farther and farther away._

"_Rin!"_

_The girl looked up when Sakura called. At first Rin looked confused, straightening up and clinging to her wicker basket. After a few moments, she smiled. "Kakashi," she said, sounding relieved._

_Sakura stopped running. Eyes wide, she watched as Kakashi walked past her. She had not sensed him behind her, but he strolled over to Rin, and they embraced. When they broke apart, he turned to scan the area behind Sakura. She opened her mouth to speak, but Kakashi put a finger to his. She found herself frozen, completely entranced by the way the breeze moved his silvery locks. His image began to shimmer, changing in the light as if it couldn't decide whether he was sixteen or thirty-eight._

_Frowning, Rin gathered the fabric of Kakashi's sleeve in one hand; Sakura reached out to grab the other. They both began to tug, pulling violently at Kakashi. He did not protest; he merely began laughing hysterically as he had in the hospital tape. His laughter was shrill and almost inhuman, causing the flowers at his feet to wither and die._

_They jerked him back and forth, gritting their teeth and cursing each other. Kakashi's arms seemed to stretch with each rough movement, elongating until they were thrice the length of his body. His laughter had transformed into high-pitched shrieks, his hysteria having reached the limit. With an ear-splitting crack, they broke him; and as his arms snapped his entire body became straw, drifting slowly to the ground and falling softly in the flowers._

_Both Rin and Sakura fell to their hands and knees, grasping at the straws. They called out his name, but there was no response— only the soft chirping of birds in the background. Distraught, both girls put their hands to their faces and cried._


End file.
